[worry]

I liked it. Didn't love it, but liked it.

[Macros]

Knight wizard or wizard knight by Wolfe, blech, did not like at all.

[theocean]

i got all the way through the black company until the last like 100 pages, i just got so tired of it by the end. It starts out decent enough but the end just seemed to drag soooo much i couldnt do it. That and i think assail came out while i was reading it so it made it that much easier for me to walk away from it

[Andorion]

theocean, on 15 December 2015 - 02:12 PM, said:

i got all the way through the black company until the last like 100 pages, i just got so tired of it by the end. It starts out decent enough but the end just seemed to drag soooo much i couldnt do it. That and i think assail came out while i was reading it so it made it that much easier for me to walk away from it

And yet I can tell you the arc formed by the first three books is excellent. I had a lot of doubts about the first book but I liked it, I did not like the second book, but I absolutely loved the third book

[Abyss]

Tad Williams' MEMORY SORROW AND THORN.

For me, there is nothing in this series that justifies the level of love, nostalgic or otherwise, that it gets from fantasy fans.

The characters are the boringest archetypes... prophecised farmboy, exiled prince, spoiled princess, brave loyal knight... the magic is unoriginal, all three books are mostly people slogging from point A to point B, and the light elves and the dark elves fight each other by singing, which resulted in my very first 'throw the book against the wall' moment, mostly because i had forced myself through so many fucking pages of slog to get to that point.

I've enjoyed everything else of his i've read, but these were the life lesson that i don't really have to finish a book just because i started it.


Similarly, JV Jones NOUN OF COLOUR THING series. SO MUCH WALKING IN THE SNOW. SO SO MUCH. Read the first book, started then skimmed the second. Out.

[Andorion]

Abercrombie's First Law books. Apart from Glokta, not much to like in them

[Cause]

Anything by K J Parker. Women or man (I understand its still a mystery) should be barred from writing.

[Macros]

What has parker written?

[Maark Abbott]

Andorion, on 15 December 2015 - 04:53 PM, said:

Abercrombie's First Law books. Apart from Glokta, not much to like in them

You do not appreciate the power of the (grim)dark side! Something, something Emperor, force, weird Emperor laugh.

[Salt-Man Z]

Cause, on 15 December 2015 - 05:17 PM, said:

Anything by K J Parker. Women or man (I understand its still a mystery)

It was actually revealed this past April: he's a dude.

[Puck]

Andorion, on 15 December 2015 - 04:53 PM, said:

Abercrombie's First Law books. Apart from Glokta, not much to like in them

Speaking of Abercrombie, I liked the First Law, but Best Served Cold turned me off his stuff for years.

[Mentalist]

I enjoy Abercrombie (though the post-BSC less so), but I never took it for anything other than a popcorn read. BSC was basically an elaborate revenge story, with flashbacks slowly revealing just how fucked up the backstory was. A grimdark Kill Bill, so to speak.

Maccy to answer your question, K. J. Parker wrote the Engineer trilo, and apparently the Fencer trilo, which I've heard is better, but I have no desire to try.

[Puck]

I never took BSC as anything more than popcorn reading, and it still managed to be both boring and predictable (in my opinion, anyway). What annoyed me the most was that Abercrombie basically rehashed the same character types he already used in the First Law trilogy, but much less interesting.

Also, I love Parker's short fiction. Have yet to read anything longer.

[Abyss]

S'funny because for me, TFL was just ok, and BSC is where JA hits his stride and starts telling great stories.

As for Parker... huh... Tom Holt... that's funny for a bunch of reasons.


Another one i didn't like... THE BLACK COMPANY...
... but not initially. I started out enjoying the series... yes, even THE SILVER SPIKE.... right up through DREAMS OF STEEL, which i really enjoyed. The series falls apart for me in book six BLEAK SEASONS... not for retelling events from the previous book from a different perspective, not for changing narrators, but for making the retelling so boring that it added nothing to the events. And then in the next book... they retell most of it AGAIN. I pushed through to WATER SLEEPS, got bored with the endless walking then waiting for things to happen, and bailed.




....Hey, since we necromanced this thread, can i slam TIGANA some more?

[Baco Xtath]

I disliked Snow Crash. I listened to it about a year ago and almost turned it off with an hour left. I don't know if it was the narrator, the horrible lingo (which doesn't age well), the corny-ness of going to college to be a pizza delivery person, the info dumps, or what but I really disliked it.

I disliked Retribution Falls and quit it after 150 pages. I picked it up again 5 years later and loved it, devouring the whole series in a couple weeks.

Didn't like the Dervish House.

Didn't like the Yiddish Policemen's Union. I guess I was just expecting some science fiction, fantasy, or at least something beyond a little alternate history.

I've tried When Heavens Fall by Turner like 3 times now and just can't do it. It tries too hard, to me.

Sanderson is borderline for me. I hate his dialogue, especially when he fails at witticism or his atrocious metaphors.

Didn't care for Republic of Thieves. I love Lynch's other stuff but this one just didn't do it for me.

Fucking hated Armada but don't think this is out of the norm.

I'm going to quit now before I alienate myself from everyone on this board.

[worry]

Salt-Man Z, on 15 December 2015 - 06:06 PM, said:

Cause, on 15 December 2015 - 05:17 PM, said:

Anything by K J Parker. Women or man (I understand its still a mystery)

It was actually revealed this past April: he's a dude.

Hate to break it to you but

[Andorion]

I disliked Abercrombie because to me it was a pretty generic fantasy story which the author was using to try to subvert tropes, but he tried this subversion too hard and too blatantly, until I felt that there was hardly any story and just subversion. It wasn't even funny.


Regarding K.J.Parker, its just another name for Tom Holt, whose humourous books are moderately good, and whose historical books - Alexander at the Worlds End, A Song for Nero, are quite good.

[Morgoth]

I too disliked Snow Crash, which is a little strange since I love all of Stephenson's other books. I think the massive infodumps in this book were different, and too integral to the plot, for me to overlook. In his other books they're a nice way to learn about how, say, the enigma engine works. In Snow Crash it's a long explenation of the plot.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Andorion, on 16 December 2015 - 01:51 AM, said:

I disliked Abercrombie because to me it was a pretty generic fantasy story which the author was using to try to subvert tropes, but he tried this subversion too hard and too blatantly, until I felt that there was hardly any story and just subversion. It wasn't even funny.

Only tried The Blade Itself, and I didn't get more than two thirds of the way through for mostly the same reasons.

[Traveller]

Blood Song.

Found it boring, predictable and gave it up about three quarters of the way through. And I hardly ever do that.