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Departments => Books => Topic started by: Patriotic Kaz on October 01, 2009, 03:15:27 AM

Title: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 01, 2009, 03:15:27 AM
Meyers is not listed b/c that would be admitting Twighlight was indeed a book. Something that "terribad" can not be written by any REAL author...it would be like saying WWE is actual fighting!


P.S. if you want an author added you need 2 nominations
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Recovering_Cynic on October 01, 2009, 03:47:08 AM
I was going to pick Terry (Goodkind and Brooks), but that would include Terry Pratchett, who happens to be the best satirist out there writing today.  Don't knock the Terry peeps.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: ryos on October 01, 2009, 04:15:17 AM
The question doesn't really compute for me. How do you tell if an author is deserving or not? Is it just if they became famous by writing books you don't like? By that metric, Jane Austen is most undeserving of her fame, as is Herman Melville...but I'm not buying it. The masses choose irrationally as they always have, and no author is more deserving of their attention than any other.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bejay on October 01, 2009, 12:21:43 PM
Hm,

1. None of the above is really overrated or undeserving. I WOULD pick the Terrys, but like Recovering_Cynic said, there is Terry Pratchett and he alone does redeem that name.

2. Who is Gollem?
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 01, 2009, 02:38:03 PM
I can't spell... and i put big names up there that i here people complain about often....with the exception of Card which just happens to be my personal opinion...he gets so many darn awards and yet his writing style is B rate. i'll change Terry to Goodkind for ya peeps
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: little wilson on October 02, 2009, 04:53:36 AM
I'm kind of with ryos on this. Saying an author is undeserving of fame is a little ridiculous. I personally think the only author who that truly applies to is Stephenie Meyer (blasphemy, I know, calling her an author. But she is. Even if I wish wasn't. Even if I wish her "saga" was used more for fire kindling than actual literature). Obviously there are people who like those authors. That's why they're famous. And if they add something to a genre, or give people a love of reading then that's good.

Some people use that excuse for Meyer. "Oh sure, there's not a lot of literary merit to it, but it's gotten so many people to read." Whatever. A lot of those readers can't read anything EXCEPT Twilight now. It's killed the literary world more than anything and that's not even addressing how much it killed mythologies. Ugh. If ever there was a book and author more undeserving of fame, it's her.

The question you really should be asking, however, is over-ratedness. That IS something that can be judged. Take the hype a book has and does it live up to it? It's that easy....Meyer still wins, though. She'll always win--at least in contests about "the worst."  :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: mtlhddoc2 on October 02, 2009, 05:20:44 AM
I picked Rowling from the list. Frankly, I started reading the first Potter novel and couldnt get through teh first chapter. Thats bad.

I dont think Card is bad, or over-rated. Matter of fact, I just started the Ender series for the first time about 2 weeks ago and just finished book 6. the "science" in it is rather shaky, but teh historical and militaristic bits are spot on.

A question though: why is it that nearly every sci-fi or fantasy author that "makes it" is either Mormon or British? Are the publishing houses owned primarily by mormons or Brits?
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on October 02, 2009, 06:20:43 AM
I think you're perceiving something that isn't borne out by statistics to quite that degree. But actually such things have been discussed before.

The second part is slightly easier to explain. The US literary crowd is more likely to accept SF/F as literature if it's not written by an American. This started with Jules Verne (yeah, I know he's French),  Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.G. Wells. Homegrown stuff is seen in a different light.

The first part—let's not have another Mormon thread, but some people think LDS are more accepting of SF/Fantasy than some other religions because life on other planets is an accepted part of church teachings (though such life is generally understood to be human rather than any kind of exotic alien). So if you have a religious person who has written a SF/Fantasy novel, I'd say the likelihood that that person is LDS is somewhat higher than would generally be expected from straight population percentage. The proportion difference is probably not very high though. When you have a few outliers like Card, Meyer, and Sanderson that can throw off the perception. But when Robert Jordan and Marion Zimmer Bradley were at the height of their careers did anyone start saying, "I wonder why there are so many successful Episcopalian fantasy writers?" It may just be that LDS are perceived by non-LDS as being out of the mainstream, so when you see them successful at something it stands out to you.

Here's a list of SF writers and their denominations: http://www.adherents.com/adh_sf.html
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Silk on October 02, 2009, 05:19:40 PM
The problem with saying that an author is "undeserving of their fame" when they're that successful, though, is just this: these people are selling (at least in some cases) ridiculously huge numbers of books. No matter how horrible we think they are, if their books have the appeal that they do for so many, they've obviously done something right.

OokPeter, that's interesting. Thanks for the link, I'll have to check it out sometime.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 02, 2009, 05:21:55 PM
Hardy har har... Heinlien and i are both reformed baptist...as in saw the light and skipped out :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: sortitus on October 02, 2009, 06:38:40 PM
I haven't read any Goodkind or Card, but I voted anyway. Rowling's first book was good, the second through fourth were passable, and the others were just awful. I didn't vote for her. I enjoyed Tolkien when I was a kid, though I don't especially like reading him anymore. I can respect the amount of worldbuilding he did, and I appreciate what he did for the genre, so I didn't vote for him either. Jordan is one of my favorite authors.

Brooks? Each of his books read like LotR with less of everything. Less fighting, less detail, etc. The only thing he outstrips the other authors on the list that I've read in is complete suckitude. If I want the characterization detail of a shoestring-budget puppet show, I'll go to a shoestring budget puppet show. I'll enjoy the story more, I'll spend less time, and I won't have to admit that I dropped money on a novel by such an awful author. (Note that I have never purchased a Brooks novel, while the others on this list (that I've read) have earned at least one purchase from me.)

As far as Meyer is concerned, I don't mind people messing with legend. After all, that's what every fantasy author does. She writes dime novels, but she's marketed as the new Hemingway (That's hyperbole, for those of you who didn't catch it. Which gives me an idea; we should call understatement hypobole.). That's what bugs me. That and her perception of science and research.

I was looking for a statement that somebody linked to (link was dead, and  I think it was somebody on here that linked me, but that doesn't matter) in which she allegedly said that she thought that stalking was hot when I ran across another part of the same interview (the page I was looking for was missing, and it was the only one) in which she said that the skin of her vampires is "...a diamond-like substance (only harder)." Yes, the skin of her vampires is very brittle, hard, and is actually more transparent than reflective. They're not only as hard as stone, they're rigid enough to make a "loud bang" when they collide. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. (http://www.twilightmoms.com/interviews/stephenie-meyer/stephenie-meyer-answers-questions-from-twilightmoms-members-2/)
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Pink Bunkadoo on October 02, 2009, 08:04:37 PM
Card, to me, is very uneven.  He has moments of sheer brilliance, but his series always seem to fizzle out.  Perhaps he should just write stand-alones.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 02, 2009, 09:49:08 PM
So far it appears no one wants to be eaten. :P And Sortitus are you sure what you said was hyperbole?
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: mtlhddoc2 on October 02, 2009, 10:11:59 PM
Peter: I am surprised there is a list like that!

I am not surprised that alot of them are athiests/agnostics, since, like you said, most religions think it is blasphemy when an author gets into magic and the like, and also, it makes sense that there would be more Mormons if they are more accepting of those types of books.

I was not using statistics for my find, more like: 5th author in a row thatI have read that was Mormon. I just thought that was odd. Especially sinces Mormons are a small percentage of the population, that we would find such a large percentage in the SF/fantasy writing field. Especially with more recent authors, not so much with older works.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: sortitus on October 03, 2009, 05:30:55 PM
...are you sure what you said was hyperbole?
Well, I haven't heard of anyone comparing Meyer to Hemingway yet. I don't exactly go around looking for reviews of an author that I don't enjoy reading though. Then again, Google returns 60k results for a search including "Ernest Hemingway" and "Stephenie Meyer" in quotes. Remove Hemingway's first name, and the count goes above 80k.

I see that Goodkind is by far the most popular choice. What makes him worse than, say, Brooks?

BTW, I still think that the forum should filter certain terrible authors' names into "PONIES", "PURE CUTENESS", or something similar ("I see that PURE CUTENESS is by far the most popular choice. What makes him worse than, say, PONIES?").
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bejay on October 03, 2009, 08:47:30 PM
Well, I voted for PURE CUTENESS because, first of all, I like PONIES better and what really decided me is that PONIES does not try to convey his rather radical conservative values to me. I loved the first couple of PURE CUTENESS' books, but when he changed to writing "death penalty/communism is evil" vouchers.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Shi on October 11, 2009, 05:15:15 AM
sortitus-- I my hate of Goodkind steams from a loss of 8 dollars, one day of my life, and pretty much every interview of him I've ever read(read one, and come join us in our loathing).
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Andrew the Great on October 11, 2009, 07:10:44 AM
Yeah, he's pretty much an arrogant jerk, and he thinks it's cool to insult his fans.

That, and he insists that he's not a fantasy author, because fantasy books simply can't be good, right? And his books, of course, are (good, not fantasy).

Between his attitudes toward the fantasy genre and his attitudes toward people in general, I've never been able to make myself like Goodkind. Add to that the fact that his books (with the exception of Wizard's First Rule) kind of suck.... Yeah, I'm not a Goodkind fan.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: firstRainbowRose on October 12, 2009, 07:36:43 AM
I'd like to nominate the dude who wrote Eragon.  I will give my disclaimer and state that while I tried to read the book it was just too badly done for me and I couldn't get into it.  However, I've heard from tons of people who have read it that the book (or, rather, all his books) are one gigantic fanfic.  He pulled this characteristic for X people from Y book, and another thing from another and mashed them all together.  So, if anyone is undeserving it's him since all he did was took already published ideas and threw them together into the same universe.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Frog on October 12, 2009, 08:03:52 AM
I don't understand your complaint. I mean, it is one thing to say that you found the book unengaging, but most authors have works that have inspired them that they build from. I personally can't think of an author/book that I would call wholely original in resent years and am willing to bet the books I thought were original when I was young, I simply didn't know the source. And then who knows if I would like an 'original' book if I found it? I guess I don't personally care for hearing whether or not a book is 'cliché' and would rather hear if the author executed it well, which is all very subjective. It makes the question of 'whether or not the author deserves their fame' rather difficult. After all, they are famous for a reason (somebody liked them) so they obviously have done something right that aspiring authors (like myself) could potentially learn from.  :)
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: firstRainbowRose on October 12, 2009, 08:12:44 AM
Well, I do agree with you there.  I remember a drama class where the teacher told us to create a new villian.  By the end of class she pointed out that all of us had used ~something~ to start out our villian (swords, random lines, etc), and that we have to draw from ourselves in order to act.  We do have to learn from others.

My point is I was at a party (I think it might have even been one of the rifftrax parties) and a couple of the people there were talking about the third book, and I remember the conversation going something like this:

person 1: He has the elves talk like in the same style as the elves from X book (I don't remember the original source book.)
person 2: I remember.  It was annoying enough to read and try to understand the style in the original book.  This rip off was even more annoying.

That's paraphrased a bit, but that was the gist of the conversation.  And I've heard a couple of people make that same comment.  So it sound like (and if anyone has read the books and can confirm/debunk this, I will bow to you) really he has litrally taken the things and meshed them together.  (IE - Let's take a dragon from pern, only make it so that you don't have to impress it,  and have a young hidden king find and befriend the dragon.  Oh, and he'll be watched over by a comination of the guy from Earthsea and a couple of Lord of the rings characters.)
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bejay on October 12, 2009, 11:35:52 AM
You might have to consider that Eragon was written by a 15 year old, who had never been to a public school (home taught by his parents I think) and had only his fantasy stories to get "out".  The book is ok, a light read, but there is no polish. Not great, but then, not terrybad. :)
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: little wilson on October 12, 2009, 02:30:41 PM
I personally thought Eragon was pretty decent. Yes, unorginal, but since it was written by a 15 year old, I'm willing to put that aside. It was an entertaining read. The other two however. You'd think he'd get better as he got older. You'd think he'd get more original. But no. No, he doesn't. If anything, he gets worse. That's saying something...
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Frog on October 12, 2009, 07:11:38 PM
Yeah, I liked the first one okay, and got through the second, but I couldn't get through the third. Even my sister (that loved Eragon and claimed that it was a much better read than the longer, more involved fantasy I have attempted to give her) couldn't get through the third one. Maybe he is used to self publishing where he doesn't have to listen to an editor?

In other news, I just read an interview by Terry Goodkind. Wow. There really is no other words to describe.... :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Andrew the Great on October 12, 2009, 08:27:06 PM
I don't know, I liked the third better than the second. Granted, it's still not as good as the first (which is saying something).

And aren't Goodkind interviews so much fun? They just make you feel warm and fuzzy inside!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on October 17, 2009, 07:37:54 PM
This topic compelled me to read a Terry Goodkind interview. I've never read any Sword of Truth, but that interview pretty much confirmed the Goodkind-bashing that goes on around here. He deserves it.

As for Eragon, well, it was good when I was a freshman in high school. It really motivated me (at the time) that a teenager could write, and it's not just an unattainable goal. That was a wonderful thing. Brisingr, however, was a piece of crap. I finished the novel, but still... not a fun experience. Turd, 100%. The books get worse and worse.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 18, 2009, 05:13:31 AM
Dragon riders and Vampires have been ridden into the ground...
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: sortitus on October 18, 2009, 06:38:15 AM
I broke down and did some research. Without reading any of Goodkind's stories, the tale I see is this:

Goodkind's first book was entertaining, but very derivative. He denies that his books are derivative (or fantasy) because of his obsession with Objectivism. He believes that all fantasy is super-derivative of Tolkien, world or magic centric (Goodkind says that his books are plot-centric), and poorly written. Except for his.

All of his books read similarly, so don't bother with more than one (sounds like a Terry ;)). Expect his characters to lecture often, do stupid things (remember, plot is the focus, not character), and conform to stereotypes.

My take is that he (as he claims) doesn't read fantasy, and so is unaware of the developments that the genre has been making. He truly thinks that what he's writing is original, but he is too lazy to see if his ideas have been done before. Goodkind is what you get when you lock someone in a room for twenty years with nothing but food, drink, writing tools, and literature from Rand and Tolkien. They may insist that their work, despite any similarities it holds to their contemporaries, is completely original because the process used was different. Which is obviously rather silly. If you make your lemonade by throwing lemons at the wall above a pitcher full of water, it's still lemonade. It might be a little bitter, but it's still lemonade.

What I'm saying is that maybe Goodkind threw Fellowship of the Ring against the wall above a pitcher full of shredded Atlas Shrugged enough times that all of the words mixed together into a passable novel. It sold, so if the system ain't broke, don't fix it! *throws RotK against the wall above a pitcher full of The Fountainhead*
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on October 18, 2009, 11:10:46 AM
The interview I read from him said, "I can't remember the last time I read a novel." Okay, so he's dyslexic, but come on... Don't claim your stuff is original when all you have is the belief that it is.

Because wow, if that were the case, I could totally sell my first book. Plenty of me believing it was original in there!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bookstore Guy on October 19, 2009, 06:07:22 PM
I broke down and did some research. Without reading any of Goodkind's stories, the tale I see is this:

Goodkind's first book was entertaining, but very derivative. He denies that his books are derivative (or fantasy) because of his obsession with Objectivism. He believes that all fantasy is super-derivative of Tolkien, world or magic centric (Goodkind says that his books are plot-centric), and poorly written. Except for his.

All of his books read similarly, so don't bother with more than one (sounds like a Terry ;)). Expect his characters to lecture often, do stupid things (remember, plot is the focus, not character), and conform to stereotypes.

My take is that he (as he claims) doesn't read fantasy, and so is unaware of the developments that the genre has been making. He truly thinks that what he's writing is original, but he is too lazy to see if his ideas have been done before. Goodkind is what you get when you lock someone in a room for twenty years with nothing but food, drink, writing tools, and literature from Rand and Tolkien. They may insist that their work, despite any similarities it holds to their contemporaries, is completely original because the process used was different. Which is obviously rather silly. If you make your lemonade by throwing lemons at the wall above a pitcher full of water, it's still lemonade. It might be a little bitter, but it's still lemonade.

What I'm saying is that maybe Goodkind threw Fellowship of the Ring against the wall above a pitcher full of shredded Atlas Shrugged enough times that all of the words mixed together into a passable novel. It sold, so if the system ain't broke, don't fix it! *throws RotK against the wall above a pitcher full of The Fountainhead*

Good summary. I approve.

The interview I read from him said, "I can't remember the last time I read a novel." Okay, so he's dyslexic, but come on... Don't claim your stuff is original when all you have is the belief that it is.

Because wow, if that were the case, I could totally sell my first book. Plenty of me believing it was original in there!

This is my main problem. It's like a writing group I went to, and I asked "So what does everyone read and get their influences from?" And people said they only read Dragonlance, or one guy said he hadn't read a novel in years--just books on writing. Understand the genre people. Understand the genre.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: mtlhddoc2 on October 19, 2009, 07:19:06 PM
you know, I had thought of picking up some of his works, now though, I wont. Does not help his cause that I thought "Legend of the Seeker" was awful. (Although a friend who turned me on to the Malazan series loves Legend. Go figure.)
I am currently looking for more books to read. Just finished Warbreaker and the Orson Scott Card twin Ender series'. Those books (including Warbreaker) did not take me nearly as long as I thought they would. Powered through all 9 books in about 10 days (with 3 days off in the middle).
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 19, 2009, 07:27:34 PM
Thank you for mentioning the most over-rated (not worst) series in Sci-Fi!!!! (as mentioned before i refuse to recognize Meyer as an author and as such Twilight is not a series).
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: sortitus on October 19, 2009, 07:31:01 PM
So, after all of my badmouthing of Terry Brooks (not to this person, thankfully), one of my friends excitedly showed me a picture of her meeting Brooks. Congratulations on meeting him! I'm not going to say anything about how much I hate his work!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on October 19, 2009, 07:38:33 PM
The interview I read from him said, "I can't remember the last time I read a novel." Okay, so he's dyslexic, but come on... Don't claim your stuff is original when all you have is the belief that it is.

Because wow, if that were the case, I could totally sell my first book. Plenty of me believing it was original in there!

This is my main problem. It's like a writing group I went to, and I asked "So what does everyone read and get their influences from?" And people said they only read Dragonlance, or one guy said he hadn't read a novel in years--just books on writing. Understand the genre people. Understand the genre.

Which is why I like your review site so much, Steve. I need to read more, and you give a mountain of suggestions. I love it.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bookstore Guy on October 19, 2009, 08:42:57 PM
Yeah, between Nick and I, we have read a book or 2. We read the bad ones so you don't have to.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: The Jade Knight on October 20, 2009, 06:08:31 PM
I am not surprised that alot of them are athiests/agnostics, since, like you said, most religions think it is blasphemy when an author gets into magic and the like, and also, it makes sense that there would be more Mormons if they are more accepting of those types of books.

I was not using statistics for my find, more like: 5th author in a row thatI have read that was Mormon. I just thought that was odd. Especially sinces Mormons are a small percentage of the population, that we would find such a large percentage in the SF/fantasy writing field. Especially with more recent authors, not so much with older works.

There are a few potential reasons for this:

1.  Mormons tend to have more exposure in all respectable fields than they exist as a population.  Compare the number of Mormons who are doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers, etc., and you'll always have higher percentages than their population base.

2.  For quite some time now (perhaps over 20 years) a course on Writing Science Fiction/Fantasy has been taught at BYU, encouraging Latter-day Saints which attend that university to explore the genre.  Generally, this course has been taught by published LDS Spec. Fic. authors (like Dave Wolverton and Brandon Sanderson).

3.  The Leading Edge is one of the better small-press Spec. Fic. magazines out there, and it's headquartered at BYU.  This gives many Latter-day Saints hands-on experience in getting involved with Sci-Fi/Fantasy publication, as well as providing a fairly natural place for them to submit their work to try to start their careers in the genre.

4.  LDS folks are much more likely to be multi-lingual than the average American, and this always helps with Fantasy.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on October 20, 2009, 08:57:21 PM
Darn it someone broke the Rowling Card tie... :(
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: maxonennis on November 04, 2009, 12:35:09 AM
I personally thought Eragon was pretty decent. Yes, unorginal, but since it was written by a 15 year old, I'm willing to put that aside. It was an entertaining read. The other two however. You'd think he'd get better as he got older. You'd think he'd get more original. But no. No, he doesn't. If anything, he gets worse. That's saying something...

I agree with this. The biggest problem with Eragon is that someone published it (which is entirely not the kid's fault). I would never show my face to the world if someone published my first book.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 04, 2009, 05:45:07 AM
Are you kidding? I tip my hat off to all the multi-millonares i meet... no matter if they have just an organized set up for stealing your lunch money! Green is green!!!



Yay Card and Rowling are tied again!!!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: melbatoast on November 06, 2009, 10:30:35 PM
Sorry, I just voted for Card.

Card, to me, is very uneven.  He has moments of sheer brilliance, but his series always seem to fizzle out.  Perhaps he should just write stand-alones.

Totally agree about his series, although I do think the Ender series is quite good. But the rest stink.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 07, 2009, 02:45:12 AM
No need to apoligize you are after all agreeing with me.... otherwise yes you should apoligize
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Miyabi on November 07, 2009, 07:50:52 AM
Card, to me, is very uneven.  He has moments of sheer brilliance, but his series always seem to fizzle out.  Perhaps he should just write stand-alones.

That is exactly the same reason I voted for Card.

Loved Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, couldn't do any other book in that series.

Plus I tried some of his others, parts were amazing, but the rest were just crappy.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: lethalfalcon on November 07, 2009, 10:35:30 AM
I had to vote for Rowling, for a couple of reasons.

1) Every other one of the authors I've read has given me ideas. Maybe their books weren't the best on the planet, but they at least kept me (mostly) intrigued. Sure, every series has its ups and downs (Goodkind and Jordan both kinda seemed to get lost in the miasma of plot they had, for example), but Rowling... I find it hard to call that literature. Flat characters against a drab environment with very little development at all. There was nothing there to "borrow" for my own writing at all, or even give me pointers into how to write better. And no, I don't consider looking at her writing and knowing what not to do as all that valuable.

2) I've never put down a book other than hers in my entire reading existence. I even read all of Goodkind's series, even though there were parts where it got a little tough. Unless a novel is really good, I just consider it a light read, look for things I can twist and use in my own writing, and move on. Rowling, on the other hand, got way too boring. I knew what was going to happen throughout each book, and finally just gave up. It's sad, really, that so many people cut their teeth on that drivel.

That said, holy Toledo, people seem to hate Twilight! I'm glad I haven't even bothered to pick it up. And I totally agree with everyone's impression of Eragon. Completely unoriginal. Even I have more sense than to rip off Star Wars, Pern, and Tolkien and shove it all into a book without changing much of anything. I probably would have voted for Paolini if he was an option.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 07, 2009, 05:46:43 PM
If Meyers was on the poll 100% of us non-newbs would have voted for her but that would mean we recognized her as an author.... which i refuse to do
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on November 07, 2009, 06:10:38 PM
If Meyers was on the poll 100% of us non-newbs would have voted for her but that would mean we recognized her as an author.... which i refuse to do

Yeah, and wilson would have your head, too.

Though if both Paolini and Meyers were on there, I might have to think about it a bit...
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: firstRainbowRose on November 07, 2009, 08:50:19 PM
Not me.  With Meyer it was a struggle, but I did eventually get into it enough to finish it.  I couldn't even start Eragon.

Also, although she may write Mary-sues, at least she tried to be original (most people hate her original, but at least she tried.)  The dragon book?  Not a new idea in the entire book.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: little wilson on November 07, 2009, 11:04:37 PM
Yeah, and wilson would have your head, too.

What's that supposed to mean?
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on November 07, 2009, 11:22:03 PM
I mean, if Kaz accepted Meyer as a real author, you'd have at 'im :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: little wilson on November 08, 2009, 12:27:00 AM
...Not really. I may consider her books as the lowest form of literature available (and it pains me to refer to it as literature), but she's still an author. She writes. She's published. She is an author, even if I don't think she should've EVER written anything, and definitely not tried to get anything she wrote published....
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Chaos on November 08, 2009, 12:40:43 AM
Fair enough.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: firstRainbowRose on November 08, 2009, 02:14:29 AM
Kendra, I have to disagree.  Twilight is absolute garbage, but The Host is worth reading.  If she did more novels like it, (and hadn't thrown a fit over Midnight Sun) people might actually come to like her writing.  It's something that I'm willing to acknowledge, and pretty much anyone who's read all five of her books agrees with me.  It's a mildy decent book.  (Not an amazing book, but good enough to be reconized.)
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: little wilson on November 08, 2009, 03:09:09 AM
See, I've heard that about The Host. And if she hadn't thrown her tantrum with Midnight Sun, I may have read it. Maybe. But she did. I think I've said this before, but I was willing to give her one last chance on her writing with Midnight Sun....And then it got leaked and she had that extremely immature fit. Now it's not just her writing I don't like. It's her. Maybe if she finished MS, I'll read it and maybe if it's actually semi-decent, I might read The Host, but as it stands now, I never plan on reading her again.
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 08, 2009, 06:07:43 AM
There are certain books you can't read more than a couple of pages from...i.e. Twilight and Moon People, and once you cross the line where i would rather eat your "book" than read it i won't pick up anything by you again!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Bejay on November 09, 2009, 01:32:47 PM
Could the person that voted for Robert Jordan kindly step forward and move on over to that nice wall over there? Have a blindfold, here you go. Cigarette? Well then....... SQUAD AIM.............
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 09, 2009, 11:28:24 PM
I thought Brooks would get more votes and card would have 3 or 4 max... I'm happy people agree with me!!!!
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Frog on November 10, 2009, 06:10:20 AM
Sweet... it seems I shall go the way of the martyr. Thank you Bejay for that opportunity. If it is any consolation, I don't think he is a bad author just because the series didn't do much for me personally. I can get a little tired of the hype, but that's just people, not a reflection on his books. I only really voted for him because I thought the question was a bit silly and I saw the subtle hint from Kaz as a challenge.  :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Patriotic Kaz on November 10, 2009, 03:41:37 PM
Tolkien challenged you with Gollum to ya know...
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Frog on November 10, 2009, 05:29:55 PM
Yeah, but I couldn't pick both of them and Gollum's my bud. :P
Title: Re: Authors undeserving of their fame.....possibly
Post by: Shard on November 30, 2009, 04:12:38 PM
Yeah, he's pretty much an arrogant jerk, and he thinks it's cool to insult his fans.

That, and he insists that he's not a fantasy author, because fantasy books simply can't be good, right? And his books, of course, are (good, not fantasy).

Between his attitudes toward the fantasy genre and his attitudes toward people in general, I've never been able to make myself like Goodkind. Add to that the fact that his books (with the exception of Wizard's First Rule) kind of suck.... Yeah, I'm not a Goodkind fan.

^ This is why I voted Goodkind, Poulini and Meyer's may not be the best authors but at least their not Jerks.