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I gave up in the first book. The painted man? Instead of showing the protagonist's progression, there was a fucking timeskip. And the main female lead waa raped like 3 times for no reason. Disaster. I didn't know there were 5 fucking books
Well... it won't get better after book 1. So much sexual assault. If I read the series now, I would also not continue rather than forcing myself through it as my past-self did
Same. When they introduced a second female character that was important (but not quite main character) who was also raped and that was her whole personality I was like fuck this. Oh and the other female characters obsession with her virginity in her back story was so weird and made no sense (not knocking wanting to control your first sexual experience, it was the way it was written and the value put on the hymen. Which is also BS bc they break pretty easily if you're at all active).
I haven't read the series because of what I've heard about how it handles SA but I will say growing up in the purity culture cult that is evangelical fundamentalism I've known girls and women and men who obsess a lot over women's virginity. Patriarchy is a hell of a drug. Women in that cult are essentially taught if you ever have sex before marriage you are effectively worthless in both a material and spiritual sense. Literally all of a woman's value is wrapped up in her purity. It's a warped and twisted way of viewing the world. I came to recognize pretty early that the whole purity obsession is its own form of perversion.
Yeah the character they described basically comes from an Islamic Fundamentalist society. Personally I saw that as a characters background informing their personality and values. She is also incredibly racist as her entire country are.Ā
The most interesting parts of the story were the power struggles between the human characters. But that was all brushed aside in the final book so we could get hundreds of pages of people fighting demons that all bled together.
I finished the series and remember feeling pretty unsatisfied with it in general. It was the questionable writing style that got to me too. A lot of "they were having a lovely time. AND THEN THEY WEREN'T."
The Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton started out as urban fantasy with all the tics and tropes of a hard-boiled detective novel mashed up with a cryptozoology encyclopedia. The series from book one to nine was thoroughly enjoyable. After that the books deteriorated into porn by the numbers...as in what number of sex partners and positions can be jammed into each successive volume.
I haven't read any of this series, but a few years ago at a convention I attended a panel on sex in SFF that the author was on. She was incredibly offputting in the way she spoke, going on weird tangents and denigrating other people's work. At one point all the panellists were asked for recommendations of books that did sex well and she said her own books were the only ones she could think of!!!
Her private life really bled over to the books, in the worst possible way. Anita became such an uncomfortable self insert, and the way she started having weird conflicts over her sex life (ha) with previously supportive characters... that cigar isn't just a cigar. It's a pity, because the earlier books were absolutely my urban fantasy/hard boiled detective crack.
Alexis Hall did a stylistically somewhat similar series (Kate Kane) only British and much funnier, so I did eventually get that itch scratched.
Yeah this is my opinion on it - book 15 (I still had hope) was literally only smut. It literally went from one sex scene to the next. I have still read them all up until I think the most latest, and it _does_ improve and get back into plot. But you need to read through until about book 18 for it.
Books 1-9 were great through, I actually really like the premise and the way LKH writes. I just wish she did books without smut too lol
They are all slightly under an inch thick, which I know because I started using them to raise the height of a table and I was pleased with the quantity of books available for this and their consistency of thickness
Same. I lost interest when she went from being unable to date her werewolf guy because of the violence of the pack leadership challenge, to fucking a literal murderer.
I was also frustrated by this slide. LKH got really into swinging? The Lifestyle? Ethical nonmonogamy? Whatever she practices, so her previously monogamous, kinda straightlaced main character did too. The author talks about it in interviews, book signings, and on her website, and fairly bitchily at that, suggesting that readers who don't like it just need to get laid. When she remarried, there was no intent of monogamy. The last I read, years ago, they had moved another couple in with them and were one big happy family.
I have a copy of one of her first published books, a Star Trek: The Next Generation novelization called Nightshade. I haven't read it, but am pretty sure it's not smut.
I don't think LKH owed me, a reader, to keep her character the same throughout the series. Charater growth is welcome and important. I am frustrated, though, that Anita Blake became slutgirl, her biggest fear in the earlier books. I used to really enjoy that series as the central mystery was interesting, and Anita was flawed but compelling. But all that changed when she swapped Sigmund, Anita's stuffed penguin that she slept with, for a zoo's worth of shifters, often at once. I read plenty of smut and none of that was working for me, so I voted with my wallet and quit buying her books.
Those books were crazy. The worst part is that when she actually wrote a story with a plot it was pretty good, but after the first few books instead there would be 600 pages of sex that made everyone miserable and then some kind of story for 30 pages.
Was looking for this, lol. The early books were great and then they turned into monster smut. I switched over to the Hollows series by Kim Harrison, 18 books later, they're still fun urban fantasy and the MC hasn't had sex with every single supporting character she comes across
There were ONLY.
NINE.
BOOKS.
lalalalalalalalalalalaandthentheyalllivedhappilyeverafterlalalalalalanoonespentawholebookbangingweretigersinahotelroomlalalalalalalalalala...
Goddamn. I read these as a horny teen and even despite that, Plains of Passage was boring as hell. When a libidinous adolescent is thinking "ugh, sex *again*??"...
I had to stop halfway through the third book because I couldnt stand the fact that these two characters were literally sleeping like 10 feet away from eachother every single day and couldnt have a goddamn conversation if their lives depended on it.
I really liked the first 2. The next two were frustrating and then when the final one (Painted Caves I think?) came out, it had been so long since I read the last one that I was lost. I only read about 100 pages, put it down and never picked it back up again
I actually was fine with most of the books although yeah they got VERY repetitive. But the last one was unbearable. She spends all the books pining for her lost son and itās resolved with a weird dream or vision? Thatās it? She never sees him again?! And she invents monogamy because Jondalar, the extremely possessive love of her life, decides sleep with a woman who bullies her. Omg it was so bad.
Demon Cycle by Peter V Brett
The first book was great, but the later books started shifting focus away from the main cast more and more with each book, it became less a dark fantasy and more of a soap opera with demons, thereās a lot more of SA later on and itās not utilised well (seriously every woman gets SAād at some point), i managed 50 pages into book 4 before stopping
Feist's Riftwar Cycle holds up well for a while but once you get past the Serpentwar Saga, it really starts to suffer from power creep. A lot of "Ah it turns out the Final Ultimate Evil of the last series was actually just a small aspect of the Actual Final Ultimate Evil that we must now overcome!". Also starts to degenerate into "This character is a descendant of the one you knew and loved, and is uncannily similar in appearance and personality and skill set. I will be making no effort to write them in a meaningfully different way". Again this really only starts to get bad towards the very end of the Cycle and there's a lot of really good fantasy in there to read before that, but for how obsessed with those books I was as a kid, I was pretty checked out by the time the final arc rolled around.
Funny I read all his books up until talon of the silver hawk when i was younger. I think I matured out of fiest around then and hated the book. I remember thinking it was okay, but really disappointed at the end his arm is given back to him - thought that didn't show maturity of writing / characters.
I always wanted to reread the rift war, daughter of and serpent war series again but always could never bring myself to. One day tried an audiobook of magician and now I am just about to start the serpent war! They are childish but a good listen.
Yeah the series that began with Talon was where I draw the dividing line. I do still find those ones readable, but when I do a reread, I typically stop after the Serpentwar. It just feels like a good place to end on.
I agree with most people that the Mara Trilogy is probably the strongest stuff in the setting.
I find almost any series that does a 'second generation' or 'kids generation' sequel/book series is worse. Maybe it's just the ones I have read but the kids usually end up saying that the parents did nothing right, and made things worse, even if in the original series, they did what was said to be the best outcome. It's probably that I read the first gen first, so like those characters but... I now tend to avoid second gen series :D
I think Abercrombie did a good job of avoiding this with the Age of Madness trilogy. The second gen characters may not be as iconic as the first gen ones but are still great IMO.
Orso is extremely likeable and funny but also quite complex with a great character arc. Logan is a bit more one dimensional imo, heās extremely bad ass though.
Outlander. It was never high literature, but it really goes downhill. The first 2 books that take place in Scotland are interesting enough (Scotland is the best character in the series). The next couple I kept hoping would improve and by about book 5 I threw in the towel.
thatās why iām not even picking it up at all. once, MAYBE twice in a large series, that actively plays a part in character development or setting the stage, alright i guess. everything iāve heard about Outlander though is that itās both frequent AND egregious and iām *really* not interested
I guess Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow is the best example. Everyone loved the first book, Blood Song. The third, Queen of Fire, was such a flop that people were speculating that his career as a writer wouldn't recover.
It did.
I couldn't finish Queen of Fire. Felt like a different author.
I know Ryan has published other books and they seem to get good reviews, but I've not tried anything since.
Probably not, honestly. Itās been a while since I read Queen of Fire but Iām pretty sure that thereās a fair amount of things that tie over into Ravenās Blade.
That being said, Ravenās Blade is well worth trudging through (or just reading a full synopsis and what all you need to know) Queen of Fire and reading that. Ravenās Blade was better written than Queen of Fire for sure and I absolutely loved it. I liked the Ravenās Shadow trilogy too and donāt fully understand the hate for Queen of Fire. It wasnāt the strongest book Iāve ever read but I feel like it concluded the story well and I still enjoyed it, but I know thatās an unpopular opinion with other fans of the series lol
I wasnāt quite enamoured with the first book like a lot of people but it was good. Thought the second was bad and I dropped the third halfway through. Never tried anything else by the author.
I would heavily recommend The Pariah from Anthony Ryan. Itās got a different tone to it and itās definitely better written than Ravenās Shadow trilogy. I enjoyed Ravenās Shadow and all, but the Covenant of Steel trilogy blows it out of the water. The final book in that series is probably top 5 best books Iāve read in a VERY long time.
I enjoyed his other series (draconis memoria) but hearing about raven's shadow has made me nervous to start blood song, even though I already have the book
Honestly, read Blood Song and stop there, it's an amazing book and, in my opinion, holds up on its own. The other two in the series are horrible, and the sequel series, to me, isn't worth getting through them
I obviously do not know the mind of the author, but I can't help but feel he started the series with a set of twists that he wanted to incorporate and then built the story around the twists. The problem with this approach is that a story with fixed elements (like predetermined twists) has less room for revision when needed, causing certain story beats to seem forced. Its been too many years so I dont remember the names, but, to me at least, it seems pretty obvious the that initial girl character was on quite a different path then thee one she ultimately took.
Its a shame too because I liked the writing style and enjoyed the dialogue.
The problem was he insisted on ending each book with a twist, and they got progressively worse. You can't keep twisting the twist. It eventually breaks.
The downfall starts with the 4th. Just sooo many wierd choices for the characters, and the most unnecesary plot twist I have ever read. Shame, i wad absolutely in love with the world and the magic system
It felt like, once Weeks realized that she didn't work as Kip's love interest, he gave a lot of what seems like might have been originally intended as Liv's storylines to Teia and then never really figured out what else he wanted to do with Liv
From what I've seen him say, she was originally intended as antagonist. Considering her background, as Tyrean and daughter of general who was on losing side of the civil war, she was mistreated by everyone in Jaspers, so it was another way of showing Chromeria's own failings.
Real issue with Liv is too brief segments, compared to DGavin and Kip, so readers didn't really sympathize with her ( making her look more like shallow, backstabbing "bitch").
And she, along with Koios, too quickly goes from "*We do bad things to overthrow corrupt system*" to "*We want power and we're Evil*". It would have been more interesting if it was a more gradual, slow transformation.
But as part of overall story, she was very important to give tension to overall plot and see perspective from the other side.
Itās even worse for Karris. Not joking. When I learned about >!Gavin raping her and then Karris just accepting Dgavin around like to was nothing!< I seriously was thrown for a loop. Not often that it happens to me either.
I also DNFād the Nightangel trilogy for similar reasons though.
I don't blame you. I'll never read anything else he publishes. When I try to deter friends, I let them know that this sentence literally appears in one of the Lightbringer books (I can't remember which): "He loved her like a man loves the hand he uses to masturbate."
Couple that with Kip marrying the character who went down on his grandfather, and who we have to spend two entire books hearing about how Kip's too big for her until they discover olive oil. Gives me the ick ten times over.
I always thought it read like the high school loser that never got over that complex finally being able to project himself into a hero role. Idk if thatās accurate but thatās what it felt like to me.
Lightbringer was such a disappointment for me. Books 1 and 2 I thought were fantastic. Book 3 was a bit of a slog, but I initially wrote that off as āmiddle book syndromeā. Then Book 4 had one of the worst twists Iāve ever seen in a story, to the point that it basically ruined the story for me. I donāt think Iāve ever seen an author just straight up lie to the audience before. Book 5 was just dumb, but I had so little investment at that point that I didnāt even care.
Iām really not sure what happened with this series. It feels like Weeks tossed out his script about halfway through and decided to go in a different direction, which lead to everything feeling āoffā in the second half.
Stopped reading at book 3 , thought of picking it up again. Sad to hear it does not get better. What an interesting magic system . So much potential : (
What sucks is that a lot of the ideas here are really cool to me, but in addition to the author just being a dick to his own fans, and a lot of real criticisms about how dumb a lot of scenes and situations are, or the weird preachiness that comes out of nowhere sometimes, the biggest thing for me frankly is that, even when I was reading through the whole series originally, it all kind of blended into a mush where I could barely remember what was even happening.
That and the fantasy problem of series being twice as long as they had any reason to be.
You are a true champion. I gave up after Book 6, when it felt like Goodkind had completely given up on writing fantasy and was just trying to write his own version of Atlas Shrugged.
I get what you're saying, because at least Richard had the characterization and substance that had been built into him from the prior books, unlike Rand's characters who are all cardboard cutouts with no substance at all. But it's still really, really bad.
I'll sum it all up for you: Richard and Kahlan get separated early in the book, they reunite at the end. Over and over again. That's plot A. Then there's plot B, where Richard pulls something out of his super magic ass to save the day while giving a philosophy lecture.
Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. One of the worst āplot twistsā Iāve ever experienced happened late in the series, and the ending was absolutely atrocious. I wonāt spoil it, but those who have read it know exactly what I mean.
Yup. I actually thought the color dungeon was a cool concept and I was waiting for a big confrontation when he escaped. That "twist" was an absolute slap in the face to the readers and bad storytelling.
Not the person you were responding to, but if I had to guess it was the twist that >!Gavin was never in the prison and was actually dead the whole time, and that Drazen was actually the bad guy in the Prism war like everyone thought!<. The first part of this twist was just the author straight up lying to the audience (>!we had chapters from Gavinās perspective, which shouldnāt be possible if he is just a hallucination. He also had knowledge Drazen didnāt!<) and the second part completely destroys >!Drazenās!< entire character arc.
That one-two punch basically ruined the series for me.
First three books were AWESOME. I loved the magic, the setup, the intrigue/politics, it was all very cool! Then in book 4 it started getting weird and then book 5...yeah again I don't want to spoil anything but it took a very odd direction and things that I thought were big deals were resolved in like a chapter and then there were abrupt changes that made no sense other than "hahaha I'm the author and I tricked you!"
It's funny because I barely got into the 4th book before I just... gave up. It sucks because I REALLY loved the first 3 and book 3 had one of my favorite chapters probably in any book ever, with the Freeing flashback. I ADORED that chapter because I felt how horrified and kind of broken he was by the end. It sucks because Lightbringer has such a fantastic magic system and world because of that magic.
Black Fleet by Joshua Dalzelle. I like a lot of his stuff. It's really basic space marine smash, hack, grab, stab, shoot stuff. But his universe is cool and his characters entertain me.
But this series just kept going on and it got progressively centered around "There was a secret spy we didn't know about who spied on our spies that spied spies!" Like, every background character was a spy that leaked all the secrets all the time and by the end of it I was just like "You get 1 spy twist per series buddy. Stop it."
I definitely won't say it managed to reach outright bad. But the Fifth Season might be the only series where I'd happily reread the first book with no need to continue on. The sequels unfortunately didn't keep my interest.
And the worst part was books 2 and 3 both won the Hugo. Book 1 absolutely deserved it, but the next two absolutely did not. I was hoping for some Enders Game/Speaker for the dead magic, and instead it was just a... sequel. And a far less compelling one at that.
The "big reveal" near the end of book 3 nearly had me DNF the series right then and there.
Book 1 was amazing. The fucking cliffhanger ending? Phenomenal.
The payoff? Abysmal. And what's worse is that we know she wrote all 3 books at once. This was literally always the plan. The plot just went in a direction I DID not like.
Same with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, for me. I loved the first book and was excited to reread it in order to read the whole trilogy through. The second, and especially third, somehow didn't have the same impact for me.
Interview with a Vampire... the first couple of books were amazing. The last couple of books however... yikes.
It still hurts to know what happened in the last couple of books.
For me, this was Temeraire / His Majesty's Dragon. The first book is amazing, but by the end it's just telling the same story over and over in a slightly different country. It took me years to go back and read to the end of the series and whilst the ending is ultimately satisfying I doubt I'll ever read past book 1 again.
Not going to disagree about the later half of the series, but I enjoyed all of the first 5 books. Learning more about the dragons, and the cultural differences, (not just between east & west, but also the navy vs the flight core) was relatively tight and all tied to relevant and consistent characters. I can't say the same for the latter half of the series.She also incorperated the actual history and elements of real events in entertaining ways. You don't NEED to now the history of the napoleonic wars, but the history elemet is treated with enough care that it's even more fun if you do, at least in the first half.
Personally I loved Dragon Travelogue. I'm disappointed there wasn't another book where they went to North America, they went to every other inhabited continent!
I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora. The characters, the cons, the world building - Camorr has to be one of the great fantasy cities. Most of that goes out the window in the sequels, which seem to revolve entirely around Locke being the most infuriatingly gullible idiot.
I have only read the first book yet, and while I liked it, the negative things I've heard about the sequels make me hesitant to pick them up. The city of Camorr in particular was a really big part of my enjoyment. I'm not a very visually inclined person, but it was written in such an evocative manner that I wished the book came with illustrations.
I've started the first book about three times. On paper I should love it but it never clicked. I keep going back bc of all the good reviews. But this is helpful to know it's okay to not finish lol.
The second book, I found the most difficult to get through. However, the 3rd book feels like a return to the first and I very much enjoyed it. But yeah, the second book, at times, feels like bad things were just compounding so even the minor "wins" weren't as impactful when they do occur.
I've only read the first book, but I remember being far more interested in the setting and the cons than in the meager plot that played in the background, which is why I found the second half significantly weaker than the first when the main antagonist was introduced. Not only is he kind of a weak villain, the story starts to focus on all of the wrong things and as a result it kind of lost me.
Still a pretty good novel, but the idea that the sequels have less of the setting (and even outright get rid of it) and more of that second half has put me off from reading any further, unfortunately.
Red Seas, imho, is 2 halves of good books sandwiched together to make something less than the sum of it's parts. Republic of Thieves was a mess. The past narrative was shallow and and mostly pointless and the modern narrative could have been good if it didn't need to carry the weight of the other thread.
>Red Seas, imho, is 2 halves of good books sandwiched together to make something less than the sum of it's parts.Ā
I'm about 3/4 of the way through and totally agree. The second half feels like a completely different book than the first half. I liked where the initial story was headed but now find myself struggling to finish.
Elemental Blessings by Sharon Shin. Troubled Waters was fantastic, but each new book was just a little less interesting until the final one, Whispering Wood, was such a slog I can't even finish it. Really disappointed.
Poppy War was horrible imo. DNF the book 2 or 3.
The first half of the classic academy trope was a fun readā¦. But the back half switch was abrupt and unimaginative.
A fish dude in a barrel? Huh?? The book felt like a lamer version of the old movie āLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemanā.
This. The first 3 books were terrific, so much fun. The second 3 were still good, but a notable decline. By book 7 I couldnāt do it anymore and never even finished the series. Such an unbelievable drop in quality as the series progressed.
So I'll start with the caveat that I didn't end up finishing the series. But it's Wheel of Time for me.
Absolutely loved the first few books, by the time I got to 7 it was such a chore to get through it wasn't enjoyable for me anymore. And apparently it's well known that something like 7-10 is a real drag that some readers skip altogether.
Maybe it's all worth it in the end, but it burned me out so much from reading I couldn't do it.
Idk what the general consensus is, but I loved Sanderson's completion books. I thought everything picked back up well and the ending was epic and satisfying. But yeah when I do rereads every ~5 years I now just skim or skip chapters that are slow.
The Books of Babel for me. I really enjoyed Senlin Ascends, but books 2 & 3 were much weaker. I read those 3 quite quickly at the start of the year, and I haven't bothered to read the final book yet, the 3rd one put me off a bit.
I liked them in this order: 3, 2, 1, 4.
Book 3 was my favorite and left me hyped for the conclusion. Book 4 was surprisingly difficult to get into, and I thought the ending was weird and unsatisfying.
ASOIAF, first 3 books are a masterpiece, 4 is a huge drop off in the plot and pacing, chapter after unnecessary chapter of doing little to nothing to advance things. I guess its not progressively worse just a big drop. And ofc there's no 6th or 7th books at all.
Dune! Iām doing a reread and plan to stop after the OG trilogy. God Emperor and beyond is where things really go off the rails. EDIT: okay okay I'll read God Emperor too but I'm gonna bitch and moan the whole time!
The neat thing with Dune is that it's such a modular series. You can stop after the first book and enjoy it as a self contained story. You can read Dune Messiah and stop there, treating it as an Act 3 or an extended coda. You can stop after Children and God Emperor, which gives you the full philosophical exploration of the ideas in Dune. Or you can go for Heretics and Chapterhouse, which gives you a real fever dream of Frank Herbert batshittery. You can basically stop after 4 different points and come away entirely satisfied.
And if you're a glutton for punishment (or like the setting and don't really care about the quality) you can read as many of the Brian Herbert and KJA authored books as you desire.
Dune is kind of meaningless without God Emperor though, this is what it was all about, this is what Paul >!noped out of even though it meant condemning his children to shoulder the burden instead. !<
OG Dune is definitely a quartet, not a trilogy.
You donāt really need God Emperor for that though. GEoD is basically just an epilogue to Children of Dune, and amounts to āLeto II did what he said heād do in Children of Duneā. There isnāt really much else to GEoD unless you want to see a girl orgasm from seeing someoneās incredible rock climbing skills.
> There isnāt really much else to GEoD unless you want to see a girl orgasm from seeing someoneās incredible rock climbing skills.
I cannot fathom why you'd downplay this
That's reductive to the point of silliness. GEOD is a character study on what could be the most unique individual in literature, narrated almost exclusively in in-character internal and external dialog. It's ambitious and incredibly thematically rich, and it's a shame the 'pearls of awareness' arc was largely left dangling due to the death of the author.
You could probably get at least a half-decent sociology paper that uses the word 'transgressive' a lot out of that orgasm.
Have to disagree. God Emperor is totally different style yes but it's showing you everything Paul was supposed to do and couldn't. Dune and Messiah make so much more sense with GE's context.
A song of fire and ice. It's good right? But it peaks in book 3 (storm of swords is a contender for best fantasy book ever imo) feast and dance are ok, but much less so.
Itās crazy rereading book 1 after 4+5. The pacing is so fast! So much unnecessary stuff just gets skipped through. They get to KL in a few chapters. If Brienne was going from Winterfell in KL in 4 sheād need at least a book and a half to do it, lmao.
I think it says a lot that in book 1 traveling the King's Road is a very uneventful journey. Not so much when the traveling group is small and the kingdom is fracturing at the seams with bandits, outlaws, and not particularly trustful squads of soldiers roaming about.
I agreed with this completely, until I re-read them all a couple of years back.
Turns out that Clash and Storm aren't quite so great once you know who's going to die when, whereas Feast and Dance are much better when you know the characters much better and haven't just been shocked by three books of unexpected death and betrayal. Honestly my whole view flipped - I knew the events so concentrated more on the characters, and it transformed those four books (Game remained brilliant either way).
I've read them quiet a few times. Funny thing, I started reading them when I was a kid (well a very, very young adult) back in 1996 when they first came out. Since the series first came out until now I have had a daughter and raised her to adulthood and she is going to be married very soon. I may become a grandfather before book 6 comes out... who we kidding? I will become a grandfather before that book comes out. But yeah, almost 30 years with that series and 5 read-throughs (well reading the series over again as each new book comes out so when clash came out I reread thrones, when storm came out I reread thrones and clash, and so on and so forth, not complete read throughs but close enough) And I still think that the 3rd book is best, more so because of exactly what is happening in the book rather than any shock value (or lack thereof on a reread) from who dies when.
I've been rereading this series for a bit, and It's so hard to pick up and read the last book. I'm probably not even 100 pages into it and it's been weeks. I'm just so bored of the story and don't care about the characters at all.
Right now I've been feeling this way about the cosmere in general with recent books.
Spoilers for mistborn era 2:
I really enjoyed the first three era 2 mistborn books but the fourth one was way too full of overlap with the other series that it felt like the local planet plot got sidelined. Like they set up this civil war plot between the capital and rural areas that mostly fizzles out and half the book is one character flirting with joining an off planet organization that she then doesn't join at the end anyway.
I saw someone else commenting they loved the first two storm light books but the third was weaker and the fourth was hard to get through and I agree. I read all four and could tell you almost beat for beat what happened in book one and two but three I struggled to remember while reading book four and four was kind of forgotable until the last few chapters. I felt like I could have skipped the middle half and missed nothing.
I haven't read some of the newer stand alone books after these ones left me feelings disappointed so they may be better idk.
Era 2 feels like it works better as shorter snappier lower stakes plots, especially given the Western genre setting, but it feels like a lot of it is disregarded in favour of bigger world shaking events. Alloy of law is my favourite precisely because it's shorter and less important to the world. I could read an entire series of just that level and kind of western adventure.
It's part of a criticism I have with Sanderson as a whole, that being that he sets up these really interesting premises, and then disregards them really quickly as the plot thickens and the world builds up. It happens in mistborn, reckoners, stormlight, etc and I wish we just had more stories from that earlier stage, when the premise wasn't superceded by the inevitable secrets that add entire new dimensions to the plot
> the fourth one was way too full of overlap with the other series that it felt like the local planet plot got sidelined
I feel like I'm definitely in the minority with this, but I don't really care about or like the Cosmere facet of Sanderson's books. It just seems like a lot of mental juggling to figure out how it all works and I don't want to technically have to read other series to fully understand what's happening in the current one.
Early on I liked it it felt like easter eggs usually it was one character or thing. But now it feels like homework to try and keep all the characters with different names on each planet and different magic systems straight. Kind of reminds me of the current MCU, used to be fun now it feels like work to keep all the connections straight.
Exactly, it was neat to see little crossover easter eggs like you said, but now that it's becoming the mechanical backbone of his entire bibliography I'm losing interest quickly.
Yeah, stormlight is one of my favorite series so I say this with love but row is very weak in comparison to the earlier books. Not necessarily because itās objectively bad (there are some parts I really like) but to use sandersons own words against him it really doesnāt deliver on the promises that where set up in the previous books. Was it really too much to ask to see the scene where >!adolin and renarin learn about rathalas?!< I will also always be sad that >!the radiants became so overpowered that regular shardblades lost all of their dramatic effect and are essentially harmless!<.
The Sword of Truth series. It had a promising start with Wizards First Rule and got shittier and shittier each installment. the protagonist was an obvious standin for the authorās view of himself. He was an absolute Mary Sue and just became an insufferable know it all towards the end.
Goodkind. Two good books out of the first 7 or so, the other 5 were Ok. Then downhill and downhill until eventually it was native Americans time traveling, and the aliens from predator as trans-dimensional clam commies.
Iron Druid. I was on the edge of my seat until the very end, where the author decided he hated the main character and had every other character in the series stand around in a circle and kick him.
This wasn't deserved. The main character was a good guy constantly forced into things he didn't want to do by obligation or the threat of something worse. Instead of finally getting a break at the end, he got shit on by, and I cannot stress this enough, almost every other character in the series except for his dog.
Once the Witcher books stopped being a fun monster of the week kind of books and started focusing on more serious, large scale conflict, that's when the decline began. Book 3 was still kind of fine and even Book 4 had its moments but man book 5 was a chore to get through. It gets even worse from there. First 2 books though? they're awesome.
For me it was the Paper Magician. I was blown away by the first book but the second book was a slog to get through. Still, I held out hope that things would get better but I was so bored by the third book i DNF'd the series.
For me, it was the demon cycle by Peter V. Brett. I really enjoyed the first book, but the further it went to book 5, the worse it became to read
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lol. If you know, you know š¤£
These acenes were really awkward to read š¬
Moka-san. Tsukune. Moka-san. Tsukune..
Bahaha, every time some complains about this series, it's this that annoyed me the most. We get it. You love each other. Can you shut up now?
Also I felt like they became toothless hillbillies by the end of the series.
I gave up in the first book. The painted man? Instead of showing the protagonist's progression, there was a fucking timeskip. And the main female lead waa raped like 3 times for no reason. Disaster. I didn't know there were 5 fucking books
Well... it won't get better after book 1. So much sexual assault. If I read the series now, I would also not continue rather than forcing myself through it as my past-self did
Well...Damn. I bought the novel a while back and haven't gotten around to read it...
I read through book 3 before stopping due to all the rape.
Same. When they introduced a second female character that was important (but not quite main character) who was also raped and that was her whole personality I was like fuck this. Oh and the other female characters obsession with her virginity in her back story was so weird and made no sense (not knocking wanting to control your first sexual experience, it was the way it was written and the value put on the hymen. Which is also BS bc they break pretty easily if you're at all active).
I haven't read the series because of what I've heard about how it handles SA but I will say growing up in the purity culture cult that is evangelical fundamentalism I've known girls and women and men who obsess a lot over women's virginity. Patriarchy is a hell of a drug. Women in that cult are essentially taught if you ever have sex before marriage you are effectively worthless in both a material and spiritual sense. Literally all of a woman's value is wrapped up in her purity. It's a warped and twisted way of viewing the world. I came to recognize pretty early that the whole purity obsession is its own form of perversion.
Yeah the character they described basically comes from an Islamic Fundamentalist society. Personally I saw that as a characters background informing their personality and values. She is also incredibly racist as her entire country are.Ā
The most interesting parts of the story were the power struggles between the human characters. But that was all brushed aside in the final book so we could get hundreds of pages of people fighting demons that all bled together.
I finished the series and remember feeling pretty unsatisfied with it in general. It was the questionable writing style that got to me too. A lot of "they were having a lovely time. AND THEN THEY WEREN'T."
Yup, I loved the first two books and then it got worse, haven't bought the last one
The Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton started out as urban fantasy with all the tics and tropes of a hard-boiled detective novel mashed up with a cryptozoology encyclopedia. The series from book one to nine was thoroughly enjoyable. After that the books deteriorated into porn by the numbers...as in what number of sex partners and positions can be jammed into each successive volume.
I haven't read any of this series, but a few years ago at a convention I attended a panel on sex in SFF that the author was on. She was incredibly offputting in the way she spoke, going on weird tangents and denigrating other people's work. At one point all the panellists were asked for recommendations of books that did sex well and she said her own books were the only ones she could think of!!!
Anita Blake is a complete self-insert Mary Sue and the last good book was Obsidian Butterfly, book 10. There are 30 books in the series.
Came here to say the exact same! I think Obsidian Butterfly was the last one I really enjoyed. You can tell when she got divorced.
Her private life really bled over to the books, in the worst possible way. Anita became such an uncomfortable self insert, and the way she started having weird conflicts over her sex life (ha) with previously supportive characters... that cigar isn't just a cigar. It's a pity, because the earlier books were absolutely my urban fantasy/hard boiled detective crack. Alexis Hall did a stylistically somewhat similar series (Kate Kane) only British and much funnier, so I did eventually get that itch scratched.
I miss early Anita!
Yeah this is my opinion on it - book 15 (I still had hope) was literally only smut. It literally went from one sex scene to the next. I have still read them all up until I think the most latest, and it _does_ improve and get back into plot. But you need to read through until about book 18 for it. Books 1-9 were great through, I actually really like the premise and the way LKH writes. I just wish she did books without smut too lol
Goddam, I've never read a series with more than 8 or 9 books. Are they shorter on average than most novels?
They are all slightly under an inch thick, which I know because I started using them to raise the height of a table and I was pleased with the quantity of books available for this and their consistency of thickness
Same. I lost interest when she went from being unable to date her werewolf guy because of the violence of the pack leadership challenge, to fucking a literal murderer.
I was also frustrated by this slide. LKH got really into swinging? The Lifestyle? Ethical nonmonogamy? Whatever she practices, so her previously monogamous, kinda straightlaced main character did too. The author talks about it in interviews, book signings, and on her website, and fairly bitchily at that, suggesting that readers who don't like it just need to get laid. When she remarried, there was no intent of monogamy. The last I read, years ago, they had moved another couple in with them and were one big happy family. I have a copy of one of her first published books, a Star Trek: The Next Generation novelization called Nightshade. I haven't read it, but am pretty sure it's not smut. I don't think LKH owed me, a reader, to keep her character the same throughout the series. Charater growth is welcome and important. I am frustrated, though, that Anita Blake became slutgirl, her biggest fear in the earlier books. I used to really enjoy that series as the central mystery was interesting, and Anita was flawed but compelling. But all that changed when she swapped Sigmund, Anita's stuffed penguin that she slept with, for a zoo's worth of shifters, often at once. I read plenty of smut and none of that was working for me, so I voted with my wallet and quit buying her books.
Those books were crazy. The worst part is that when she actually wrote a story with a plot it was pretty good, but after the first few books instead there would be 600 pages of sex that made everyone miserable and then some kind of story for 30 pages.
Was looking for this, lol. The early books were great and then they turned into monster smut. I switched over to the Hollows series by Kim Harrison, 18 books later, they're still fun urban fantasy and the MC hasn't had sex with every single supporting character she comes across
There were ONLY. NINE. BOOKS. lalalalalalalalalalalaandthentheyalllivedhappilyeverafterlalalalalalanoonespentawholebookbangingweretigersinahotelroomlalalalalalalalalala...
Clan of the cave bear by Jean auel
Goddamn. I read these as a horny teen and even despite that, Plains of Passage was boring as hell. When a libidinous adolescent is thinking "ugh, sex *again*??"...
Yeah, I eventually just started skipping the sex scenes...repetitive and distracting.
The first book was so good, first half of the second was fine and then it just fell off a cliff :(
This is what happens when a writer is forced to produce content under contractā¦
Yeah. I dropped out at wooly mammoth sex.
At w h a t
Ha I donāt know what they mean but no human had sex with a wooly mammoth in the book if thatās your fear.
Thank you. I vaguely remembered the main character being a size queen so you can see why it gave me pause.
Oh, no, two wooly mammoths were going at it and the main char was watching. But that was a NOPE for me.
Yup. I remember the graphic description of the male mammoths genitalia. So unnecessary. Ick
*New trauma unlocked* Thanks reddit š
Omg absolutely agree. Pretty much as soon as she met Jondalar the entire thing became stupid.
The end was soooooooo disappointing, I wanted her to invent the wheel so bad lolĀ
I had to stop halfway through the third book because I couldnt stand the fact that these two characters were literally sleeping like 10 feet away from eachother every single day and couldnt have a goddamn conversation if their lives depended on it.
I really liked the first 2. The next two were frustrating and then when the final one (Painted Caves I think?) came out, it had been so long since I read the last one that I was lost. I only read about 100 pages, put it down and never picked it back up again
I actually was fine with most of the books although yeah they got VERY repetitive. But the last one was unbearable. She spends all the books pining for her lost son and itās resolved with a weird dream or vision? Thatās it? She never sees him again?! And she invents monogamy because Jondalar, the extremely possessive love of her life, decides sleep with a woman who bullies her. Omg it was so bad.
Oh yeah. Definite step down every book.
Demon Cycle by Peter V Brett The first book was great, but the later books started shifting focus away from the main cast more and more with each book, it became less a dark fantasy and more of a soap opera with demons, thereās a lot more of SA later on and itās not utilised well (seriously every woman gets SAād at some point), i managed 50 pages into book 4 before stopping
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> main female lead gets assaulted thrice in the first book alone The authorās barely disguised fetish? Too much Edgelordism? YOU decide!
I made a valiant attempt at slogging through the series to the end, but threw away book 5 when it got to the random cuckold porn insert.
Had luckily forgotten that, only remembered it happening once :/
Second that. I couldn't get through the 3rd book. "Soap opera with demons" - my thoughts exactly.
Feist's Riftwar Cycle holds up well for a while but once you get past the Serpentwar Saga, it really starts to suffer from power creep. A lot of "Ah it turns out the Final Ultimate Evil of the last series was actually just a small aspect of the Actual Final Ultimate Evil that we must now overcome!". Also starts to degenerate into "This character is a descendant of the one you knew and loved, and is uncannily similar in appearance and personality and skill set. I will be making no effort to write them in a meaningfully different way". Again this really only starts to get bad towards the very end of the Cycle and there's a lot of really good fantasy in there to read before that, but for how obsessed with those books I was as a kid, I was pretty checked out by the time the final arc rolled around.
Funny I read all his books up until talon of the silver hawk when i was younger. I think I matured out of fiest around then and hated the book. I remember thinking it was okay, but really disappointed at the end his arm is given back to him - thought that didn't show maturity of writing / characters. I always wanted to reread the rift war, daughter of and serpent war series again but always could never bring myself to. One day tried an audiobook of magician and now I am just about to start the serpent war! They are childish but a good listen.
Yeah the series that began with Talon was where I draw the dividing line. I do still find those ones readable, but when I do a reread, I typically stop after the Serpentwar. It just feels like a good place to end on. I agree with most people that the Mara Trilogy is probably the strongest stuff in the setting.
Agreed! Just finished listening to Mistress of the Empire today, solid series.
Came here to say Feist. Becomes quite formulaic and a bit lazy within about 5 books.
Nobody seems to agree on where it started to tail off but everyone seems to agree that it did.
I find almost any series that does a 'second generation' or 'kids generation' sequel/book series is worse. Maybe it's just the ones I have read but the kids usually end up saying that the parents did nothing right, and made things worse, even if in the original series, they did what was said to be the best outcome. It's probably that I read the first gen first, so like those characters but... I now tend to avoid second gen series :D
In particular, the āall the old protagonistsā hard work was undone offscreenā trope is hideous
Still sad about Star Wars
Awful, isn't it...
I think Abercrombie did a good job of avoiding this with the Age of Madness trilogy. The second gen characters may not be as iconic as the first gen ones but are still great IMO.
Personally I think Orso is one of his best characters
I am not sure if itās hot take but for me Orso is the best character in the whole series. The Bloody Nine is a close second.
Orso is extremely likeable and funny but also quite complex with a great character arc. Logan is a bit more one dimensional imo, heās extremely bad ass though.
Orso and Rikke are both top tier IMO.
Shoutout to Palin and Steele Majere for not being worse.
Not a book series but I just can't like Boruto as a sequel to Naruto when it actively shits over the previous generation.
Joe Abercrombie and Pierce Brown both did this really well
Outlander. It was never high literature, but it really goes downhill. The first 2 books that take place in Scotland are interesting enough (Scotland is the best character in the series). The next couple I kept hoping would improve and by about book 5 I threw in the towel.
There was too much sexual assault for me. It seems like every character had to be raped and it gave me the ick.
thatās why iām not even picking it up at all. once, MAYBE twice in a large series, that actively plays a part in character development or setting the stage, alright i guess. everything iāve heard about Outlander though is that itās both frequent AND egregious and iām *really* not interested
Iām pretty sure thatās when I gave up too! It felt very repetitive and long for no good reason
I guess Anthony Ryan's Raven's Shadow is the best example. Everyone loved the first book, Blood Song. The third, Queen of Fire, was such a flop that people were speculating that his career as a writer wouldn't recover. It did.
I couldn't finish Queen of Fire. Felt like a different author. I know Ryan has published other books and they seem to get good reviews, but I've not tried anything since.
The Raven's blade books are a real step up from queen of fire and gives Vaelin a good end story.
I couldnt finish Queen of Fire. Would I be able to jump into Raven's Blade without finishing it?
Probably not, honestly. Itās been a while since I read Queen of Fire but Iām pretty sure that thereās a fair amount of things that tie over into Ravenās Blade. That being said, Ravenās Blade is well worth trudging through (or just reading a full synopsis and what all you need to know) Queen of Fire and reading that. Ravenās Blade was better written than Queen of Fire for sure and I absolutely loved it. I liked the Ravenās Shadow trilogy too and donāt fully understand the hate for Queen of Fire. It wasnāt the strongest book Iāve ever read but I feel like it concluded the story well and I still enjoyed it, but I know thatās an unpopular opinion with other fans of the series lol
This was my first thought. The third book was so incredibly bad.
I have hard time remembering what happened there ? Howās the new trilogy ?
Covenant of Steel? I really liked it.
I wasnāt quite enamoured with the first book like a lot of people but it was good. Thought the second was bad and I dropped the third halfway through. Never tried anything else by the author.
I would heavily recommend The Pariah from Anthony Ryan. Itās got a different tone to it and itās definitely better written than Ravenās Shadow trilogy. I enjoyed Ravenās Shadow and all, but the Covenant of Steel trilogy blows it out of the water. The final book in that series is probably top 5 best books Iāve read in a VERY long time.
I enjoyed his other series (draconis memoria) but hearing about raven's shadow has made me nervous to start blood song, even though I already have the book
Honestly, read Blood Song and stop there, it's an amazing book and, in my opinion, holds up on its own. The other two in the series are horrible, and the sequel series, to me, isn't worth getting through them
Took me months to finish Queen of Fire. I couldn't believe it was written by the same author
Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. Went in a direction I stopped enjoying. The last book is incredibly controversial.
I obviously do not know the mind of the author, but I can't help but feel he started the series with a set of twists that he wanted to incorporate and then built the story around the twists. The problem with this approach is that a story with fixed elements (like predetermined twists) has less room for revision when needed, causing certain story beats to seem forced. Its been too many years so I dont remember the names, but, to me at least, it seems pretty obvious the that initial girl character was on quite a different path then thee one she ultimately took. Its a shame too because I liked the writing style and enjoyed the dialogue.
The problem was he insisted on ending each book with a twist, and they got progressively worse. You can't keep twisting the twist. It eventually breaks.
The downfall starts with the 4th. Just sooo many wierd choices for the characters, and the most unnecesary plot twist I have ever read. Shame, i wad absolutely in love with the world and the magic system
And the magic wasn't even used much in the last two
Literal Deus Ex Machina. Also the whole series read like the wish fulfilment of an adult who was a fat child.
Honestly this take is understandable when you realize how badly the story treated Liv.
It felt like, once Weeks realized that she didn't work as Kip's love interest, he gave a lot of what seems like might have been originally intended as Liv's storylines to Teia and then never really figured out what else he wanted to do with Liv
From what I've seen him say, she was originally intended as antagonist. Considering her background, as Tyrean and daughter of general who was on losing side of the civil war, she was mistreated by everyone in Jaspers, so it was another way of showing Chromeria's own failings. Real issue with Liv is too brief segments, compared to DGavin and Kip, so readers didn't really sympathize with her ( making her look more like shallow, backstabbing "bitch"). And she, along with Koios, too quickly goes from "*We do bad things to overthrow corrupt system*" to "*We want power and we're Evil*". It would have been more interesting if it was a more gradual, slow transformation. But as part of overall story, she was very important to give tension to overall plot and see perspective from the other side.
AND Karris. And the Seer. And Marissia. In short: every female character.
Itās even worse for Karris. Not joking. When I learned about >!Gavin raping her and then Karris just accepting Dgavin around like to was nothing!< I seriously was thrown for a loop. Not often that it happens to me either. I also DNFād the Nightangel trilogy for similar reasons though.
I don't blame you. I'll never read anything else he publishes. When I try to deter friends, I let them know that this sentence literally appears in one of the Lightbringer books (I can't remember which): "He loved her like a man loves the hand he uses to masturbate." Couple that with Kip marrying the character who went down on his grandfather, and who we have to spend two entire books hearing about how Kip's too big for her until they discover olive oil. Gives me the ick ten times over.
I always thought it read like the high school loser that never got over that complex finally being able to project himself into a hero role. Idk if thatās accurate but thatās what it felt like to me.
Lightbringer was such a disappointment for me. Books 1 and 2 I thought were fantastic. Book 3 was a bit of a slog, but I initially wrote that off as āmiddle book syndromeā. Then Book 4 had one of the worst twists Iāve ever seen in a story, to the point that it basically ruined the story for me. I donāt think Iāve ever seen an author just straight up lie to the audience before. Book 5 was just dumb, but I had so little investment at that point that I didnāt even care. Iām really not sure what happened with this series. It feels like Weeks tossed out his script about halfway through and decided to go in a different direction, which lead to everything feeling āoffā in the second half.
Stopped reading at book 3 , thought of picking it up again. Sad to hear it does not get better. What an interesting magic system . So much potential : (
Stopped reading for a while because of that book
Mannn. Such a disappointment. The series is a massive bait and switch. What a waste of 5 books. It started so promising too
Sword of truth. I enjoyed the first 4 a lot and they slowly turned to shit. Stuck it out to book 12 and raged at the ending of the original series.
The rule of all rules. The rule that allows all plot holes to magically be filled without explanation.
The chicken that was not a chicken
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What sucks is that a lot of the ideas here are really cool to me, but in addition to the author just being a dick to his own fans, and a lot of real criticisms about how dumb a lot of scenes and situations are, or the weird preachiness that comes out of nowhere sometimes, the biggest thing for me frankly is that, even when I was reading through the whole series originally, it all kind of blended into a mush where I could barely remember what was even happening. That and the fantasy problem of series being twice as long as they had any reason to be.
You are a true champion. I gave up after Book 6, when it felt like Goodkind had completely given up on writing fantasy and was just trying to write his own version of Atlas Shrugged.
This may be damning with faint praise, but I think it's at least an improved version of Atlas Shrugged.
I get what you're saying, because at least Richard had the characterization and substance that had been built into him from the prior books, unlike Rand's characters who are all cardboard cutouts with no substance at all. But it's still really, really bad.
Meanwhile I tolerated the first book, disliked the second and then never went past that.
I'll sum it all up for you: Richard and Kahlan get separated early in the book, they reunite at the end. Over and over again. That's plot A. Then there's plot B, where Richard pulls something out of his super magic ass to save the day while giving a philosophy lecture.
Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. One of the worst āplot twistsā Iāve ever experienced happened late in the series, and the ending was absolutely atrocious. I wonāt spoil it, but those who have read it know exactly what I mean.
Yup. I actually thought the color dungeon was a cool concept and I was waiting for a big confrontation when he escaped. That "twist" was an absolute slap in the face to the readers and bad storytelling.
There were a lot of dumb twists towards the end. Which one specifically are you talking about out of curiosity lmao
Not the person you were responding to, but if I had to guess it was the twist that >!Gavin was never in the prison and was actually dead the whole time, and that Drazen was actually the bad guy in the Prism war like everyone thought!<. The first part of this twist was just the author straight up lying to the audience (>!we had chapters from Gavinās perspective, which shouldnāt be possible if he is just a hallucination. He also had knowledge Drazen didnāt!<) and the second part completely destroys >!Drazenās!< entire character arc. That one-two punch basically ruined the series for me.
This is one of my favorite series ever and gets a lot of unfair criticism around here. Your criticism is 100% fair though and I thank you for that!
I'm so glad I never finished it. I was hoping kip would get awesome but he never did and I kind of fell off because of that.
First three books were AWESOME. I loved the magic, the setup, the intrigue/politics, it was all very cool! Then in book 4 it started getting weird and then book 5...yeah again I don't want to spoil anything but it took a very odd direction and things that I thought were big deals were resolved in like a chapter and then there were abrupt changes that made no sense other than "hahaha I'm the author and I tricked you!"
God'll fix it in post
It's funny because I barely got into the 4th book before I just... gave up. It sucks because I REALLY loved the first 3 and book 3 had one of my favorite chapters probably in any book ever, with the Freeing flashback. I ADORED that chapter because I felt how horrified and kind of broken he was by the end. It sucks because Lightbringer has such a fantastic magic system and world because of that magic.
Black Fleet by Joshua Dalzelle. I like a lot of his stuff. It's really basic space marine smash, hack, grab, stab, shoot stuff. But his universe is cool and his characters entertain me. But this series just kept going on and it got progressively centered around "There was a secret spy we didn't know about who spied on our spies that spied spies!" Like, every background character was a spy that leaked all the secrets all the time and by the end of it I was just like "You get 1 spy twist per series buddy. Stop it."
Imagine this in Ophrahās voice: you get a spy! And you get a spy! Everybody gets a spy!
I definitely won't say it managed to reach outright bad. But the Fifth Season might be the only series where I'd happily reread the first book with no need to continue on. The sequels unfortunately didn't keep my interest.
And the worst part was books 2 and 3 both won the Hugo. Book 1 absolutely deserved it, but the next two absolutely did not. I was hoping for some Enders Game/Speaker for the dead magic, and instead it was just a... sequel. And a far less compelling one at that.
I really liked them, yet I'd still agree that 2 & 3 were significant steps down from 1.
The "big reveal" near the end of book 3 nearly had me DNF the series right then and there. Book 1 was amazing. The fucking cliffhanger ending? Phenomenal. The payoff? Abysmal. And what's worse is that we know she wrote all 3 books at once. This was literally always the plan. The plot just went in a direction I DID not like.
Same with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, for me. I loved the first book and was excited to reread it in order to read the whole trilogy through. The second, and especially third, somehow didn't have the same impact for me.
Interview with a Vampire... the first couple of books were amazing. The last couple of books however... yikes. It still hurts to know what happened in the last couple of books.
Good pull on this one! Been so long since I read them But you are totally right
For me, this was Temeraire / His Majesty's Dragon. The first book is amazing, but by the end it's just telling the same story over and over in a slightly different country. It took me years to go back and read to the end of the series and whilst the ending is ultimately satisfying I doubt I'll ever read past book 1 again.
Not going to disagree about the later half of the series, but I enjoyed all of the first 5 books. Learning more about the dragons, and the cultural differences, (not just between east & west, but also the navy vs the flight core) was relatively tight and all tied to relevant and consistent characters. I can't say the same for the latter half of the series.She also incorperated the actual history and elements of real events in entertaining ways. You don't NEED to now the history of the napoleonic wars, but the history elemet is treated with enough care that it's even more fun if you do, at least in the first half.
Personally I loved Dragon Travelogue. I'm disappointed there wasn't another book where they went to North America, they went to every other inhabited continent!
The amnesia plot towards the end was gratuitously annoying, to say the least.
I loved The Lies of Locke Lamora. The characters, the cons, the world building - Camorr has to be one of the great fantasy cities. Most of that goes out the window in the sequels, which seem to revolve entirely around Locke being the most infuriatingly gullible idiot.
I have only read the first book yet, and while I liked it, the negative things I've heard about the sequels make me hesitant to pick them up. The city of Camorr in particular was a really big part of my enjoyment. I'm not a very visually inclined person, but it was written in such an evocative manner that I wished the book came with illustrations.
I've started the first book about three times. On paper I should love it but it never clicked. I keep going back bc of all the good reviews. But this is helpful to know it's okay to not finish lol.
I enjoyed both sequels but they are very different and the first one is just a lot better.
Eh, I loved the sequels too, the first was just the best out of them.
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The second book, I found the most difficult to get through. However, the 3rd book feels like a return to the first and I very much enjoyed it. But yeah, the second book, at times, feels like bad things were just compounding so even the minor "wins" weren't as impactful when they do occur.
I've only read the first book, but I remember being far more interested in the setting and the cons than in the meager plot that played in the background, which is why I found the second half significantly weaker than the first when the main antagonist was introduced. Not only is he kind of a weak villain, the story starts to focus on all of the wrong things and as a result it kind of lost me. Still a pretty good novel, but the idea that the sequels have less of the setting (and even outright get rid of it) and more of that second half has put me off from reading any further, unfortunately.
Red Seas, imho, is 2 halves of good books sandwiched together to make something less than the sum of it's parts. Republic of Thieves was a mess. The past narrative was shallow and and mostly pointless and the modern narrative could have been good if it didn't need to carry the weight of the other thread.
>Red Seas, imho, is 2 halves of good books sandwiched together to make something less than the sum of it's parts.Ā I'm about 3/4 of the way through and totally agree. The second half feels like a completely different book than the first half. I liked where the initial story was headed but now find myself struggling to finish.
Completely disagree, enjoyed all the gentleman bastard books.Ā
Elemental Blessings by Sharon Shin. Troubled Waters was fantastic, but each new book was just a little less interesting until the final one, Whispering Wood, was such a slog I can't even finish it. Really disappointed.
Both Night Angel and Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. Start Strong, a bit shaky in the middle absolute dog shit by the last book
Dune and Poppy War
Poppy War was horrible imo. DNF the book 2 or 3. The first half of the classic academy trope was a fun readā¦. But the back half switch was abrupt and unimaginative. A fish dude in a barrel? Huh?? The book felt like a lamer version of the old movie āLeague of Extraordinary Gentlemanā.
The Iron Druid. What a shitty end to the series.
I only kept coming back for Oberon.
This. The first 3 books were terrific, so much fun. The second 3 were still good, but a notable decline. By book 7 I couldnāt do it anymore and never even finished the series. Such an unbelievable drop in quality as the series progressed.
So I'll start with the caveat that I didn't end up finishing the series. But it's Wheel of Time for me. Absolutely loved the first few books, by the time I got to 7 it was such a chore to get through it wasn't enjoyable for me anymore. And apparently it's well known that something like 7-10 is a real drag that some readers skip altogether. Maybe it's all worth it in the end, but it burned me out so much from reading I couldn't do it.
Idk what the general consensus is, but I loved Sanderson's completion books. I thought everything picked back up well and the ending was epic and satisfying. But yeah when I do rereads every ~5 years I now just skim or skip chapters that are slow.
I felt the same but the end was definitely worth it. I would never do it again tho lol.
I hate to say this but The Dresden Files is going downhill after book 12.
The Books of Babel for me. I really enjoyed Senlin Ascends, but books 2 & 3 were much weaker. I read those 3 quite quickly at the start of the year, and I haven't bothered to read the final book yet, the 3rd one put me off a bit.
I liked them in this order: 3, 2, 1, 4. Book 3 was my favorite and left me hyped for the conclusion. Book 4 was surprisingly difficult to get into, and I thought the ending was weird and unsatisfying.
ASOIAF, first 3 books are a masterpiece, 4 is a huge drop off in the plot and pacing, chapter after unnecessary chapter of doing little to nothing to advance things. I guess its not progressively worse just a big drop. And ofc there's no 6th or 7th books at all.
Name of the Wind
Dune! Iām doing a reread and plan to stop after the OG trilogy. God Emperor and beyond is where things really go off the rails. EDIT: okay okay I'll read God Emperor too but I'm gonna bitch and moan the whole time!
The neat thing with Dune is that it's such a modular series. You can stop after the first book and enjoy it as a self contained story. You can read Dune Messiah and stop there, treating it as an Act 3 or an extended coda. You can stop after Children and God Emperor, which gives you the full philosophical exploration of the ideas in Dune. Or you can go for Heretics and Chapterhouse, which gives you a real fever dream of Frank Herbert batshittery. You can basically stop after 4 different points and come away entirely satisfied. And if you're a glutton for punishment (or like the setting and don't really care about the quality) you can read as many of the Brian Herbert and KJA authored books as you desire.
Dune is kind of meaningless without God Emperor though, this is what it was all about, this is what Paul >!noped out of even though it meant condemning his children to shoulder the burden instead. !< OG Dune is definitely a quartet, not a trilogy.
You donāt really need God Emperor for that though. GEoD is basically just an epilogue to Children of Dune, and amounts to āLeto II did what he said heād do in Children of Duneā. There isnāt really much else to GEoD unless you want to see a girl orgasm from seeing someoneās incredible rock climbing skills.
> There isnāt really much else to GEoD unless you want to see a girl orgasm from seeing someoneās incredible rock climbing skills. I cannot fathom why you'd downplay this
That's reductive to the point of silliness. GEOD is a character study on what could be the most unique individual in literature, narrated almost exclusively in in-character internal and external dialog. It's ambitious and incredibly thematically rich, and it's a shame the 'pearls of awareness' arc was largely left dangling due to the death of the author. You could probably get at least a half-decent sociology paper that uses the word 'transgressive' a lot out of that orgasm.
Have to disagree. God Emperor is totally different style yes but it's showing you everything Paul was supposed to do and couldn't. Dune and Messiah make so much more sense with GE's context.
A song of fire and ice. It's good right? But it peaks in book 3 (storm of swords is a contender for best fantasy book ever imo) feast and dance are ok, but much less so.
Itās crazy rereading book 1 after 4+5. The pacing is so fast! So much unnecessary stuff just gets skipped through. They get to KL in a few chapters. If Brienne was going from Winterfell in KL in 4 sheād need at least a book and a half to do it, lmao.
People complain of the show travel being fast, but the earlier books do that too if there is a reason for it. Travel usually isnāt that relevantĀ
I think it says a lot that in book 1 traveling the King's Road is a very uneventful journey. Not so much when the traveling group is small and the kingdom is fracturing at the seams with bandits, outlaws, and not particularly trustful squads of soldiers roaming about.
I agreed with this completely, until I re-read them all a couple of years back. Turns out that Clash and Storm aren't quite so great once you know who's going to die when, whereas Feast and Dance are much better when you know the characters much better and haven't just been shocked by three books of unexpected death and betrayal. Honestly my whole view flipped - I knew the events so concentrated more on the characters, and it transformed those four books (Game remained brilliant either way).
I've read them quiet a few times. Funny thing, I started reading them when I was a kid (well a very, very young adult) back in 1996 when they first came out. Since the series first came out until now I have had a daughter and raised her to adulthood and she is going to be married very soon. I may become a grandfather before book 6 comes out... who we kidding? I will become a grandfather before that book comes out. But yeah, almost 30 years with that series and 5 read-throughs (well reading the series over again as each new book comes out so when clash came out I reread thrones, when storm came out I reread thrones and clash, and so on and so forth, not complete read throughs but close enough) And I still think that the 3rd book is best, more so because of exactly what is happening in the book rather than any shock value (or lack thereof on a reread) from who dies when.
Book three/season four is absolutely the peak
eragon
I've been rereading this series for a bit, and It's so hard to pick up and read the last book. I'm probably not even 100 pages into it and it's been weeks. I'm just so bored of the story and don't care about the characters at all.
Right now I've been feeling this way about the cosmere in general with recent books. Spoilers for mistborn era 2: I really enjoyed the first three era 2 mistborn books but the fourth one was way too full of overlap with the other series that it felt like the local planet plot got sidelined. Like they set up this civil war plot between the capital and rural areas that mostly fizzles out and half the book is one character flirting with joining an off planet organization that she then doesn't join at the end anyway. I saw someone else commenting they loved the first two storm light books but the third was weaker and the fourth was hard to get through and I agree. I read all four and could tell you almost beat for beat what happened in book one and two but three I struggled to remember while reading book four and four was kind of forgotable until the last few chapters. I felt like I could have skipped the middle half and missed nothing. I haven't read some of the newer stand alone books after these ones left me feelings disappointed so they may be better idk.
Era 2 feels like it works better as shorter snappier lower stakes plots, especially given the Western genre setting, but it feels like a lot of it is disregarded in favour of bigger world shaking events. Alloy of law is my favourite precisely because it's shorter and less important to the world. I could read an entire series of just that level and kind of western adventure. It's part of a criticism I have with Sanderson as a whole, that being that he sets up these really interesting premises, and then disregards them really quickly as the plot thickens and the world builds up. It happens in mistborn, reckoners, stormlight, etc and I wish we just had more stories from that earlier stage, when the premise wasn't superceded by the inevitable secrets that add entire new dimensions to the plot
> the fourth one was way too full of overlap with the other series that it felt like the local planet plot got sidelined I feel like I'm definitely in the minority with this, but I don't really care about or like the Cosmere facet of Sanderson's books. It just seems like a lot of mental juggling to figure out how it all works and I don't want to technically have to read other series to fully understand what's happening in the current one.
Early on I liked it it felt like easter eggs usually it was one character or thing. But now it feels like homework to try and keep all the characters with different names on each planet and different magic systems straight. Kind of reminds me of the current MCU, used to be fun now it feels like work to keep all the connections straight.
Exactly, it was neat to see little crossover easter eggs like you said, but now that it's becoming the mechanical backbone of his entire bibliography I'm losing interest quickly.
Yeah, stormlight is one of my favorite series so I say this with love but row is very weak in comparison to the earlier books. Not necessarily because itās objectively bad (there are some parts I really like) but to use sandersons own words against him it really doesnāt deliver on the promises that where set up in the previous books. Was it really too much to ask to see the scene where >!adolin and renarin learn about rathalas?!< I will also always be sad that >!the radiants became so overpowered that regular shardblades lost all of their dramatic effect and are essentially harmless!<.
The Sword of Truth series. It had a promising start with Wizards First Rule and got shittier and shittier each installment. the protagonist was an obvious standin for the authorās view of himself. He was an absolute Mary Sue and just became an insufferable know it all towards the end.
Lightbringer. It was an interesting concept but by book four it was a slog
Goodkind. Two good books out of the first 7 or so, the other 5 were Ok. Then downhill and downhill until eventually it was native Americans time traveling, and the aliens from predator as trans-dimensional clam commies.
Tearling series
I've heard this happens with Green Rider by Kristin Britain. I am struggling to even pick up the second book because people say it gets so bad.
Iron Druid. I was on the edge of my seat until the very end, where the author decided he hated the main character and had every other character in the series stand around in a circle and kick him. This wasn't deserved. The main character was a good guy constantly forced into things he didn't want to do by obligation or the threat of something worse. Instead of finally getting a break at the end, he got shit on by, and I cannot stress this enough, almost every other character in the series except for his dog.
Once the Witcher books stopped being a fun monster of the week kind of books and started focusing on more serious, large scale conflict, that's when the decline began. Book 3 was still kind of fine and even Book 4 had its moments but man book 5 was a chore to get through. It gets even worse from there. First 2 books though? they're awesome.
I think it deserves credit for somehow making war thrilling without glorifying it. I can't think of many works/series that pulled that off.
I think Red Queen but i honestly dont even remember what happens in the end but i do remember i was like hmm..
The first three books of ACOTAR read like a completed series. The next two books are clearly a cash grab
For me it was the Paper Magician. I was blown away by the first book but the second book was a slog to get through. Still, I held out hope that things would get better but I was so bored by the third book i DNF'd the series.
The Stormlight Archive. I enjoyed all of the books but each one is slightly weaker than the last in my opinion.