[Dolorous Menhir]

Ha, that's funny, I saw your title and immediately thought "Bakker".

But since you already mentioned it, and I don't really have any other examples of something that disappointed me that much...

[Werthead]

I think Bakker's series is excellent, but The Thousandfold Thought did disappoint me with its overload of cliffhangers, particularly after I was assured it didn't leave much unresolved for the next series. I counted about half a dozen plot points that were not addressed and several characters literally left hanging in mid-air.

I wouldn't say it 'totally' disappointed me, but The Bonehunters didn't rock nearly as much as I thought it would, and again the avalanche of cliffhangers from an author who has gone to some lengths to avoid them in the past was bizarre.

Disappointment is a common feeling encountered when reading Robert Jordan. To that end, The Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart were quite disappointing. Crossroads of Twilight was extremely disappointing even with my very lowered expectations. Knife of Dreams I quite enjoyed because it exceeded my rock-bottom expecations.

[Folken]

because I feel like saying this. Lets not start a discussion on Bakker in this thread;) We have threads dedicated to him.

As for disappointing novels...TWP:o lol

@Werthead: You know I was thinking on that very point last night and I can't help but put Bonehunters in the category of being a bridge novel. A LOT of things happened in this novel, but at the same time...nothing happened. Cliffhangers were, as you say , epic in proportion. For that reason, Id say Bonehunters is more of a bridge novel than anything else. But, that set aside it was still an awesome read and I loved every page of it. It was only after I was done that these thoughts have come:p

[RodeoRanch]

Crossroads of Twilight brought me down. Brought me down hard.

[McLovin]

Staying with the RJ theme, A Crown of Swords. That was when I realized WoT wasn't going anywhere.

[Illuyankas]

Baxter's Origin, the last of the Manifold Trilogy. I just didn't find it interesting at all. I'll also second the Jordan vote, but I got the first nine books at a discount and read them in a week, and it took me until Winter's Heart to think, "Wait... What?" But yeah, Crossroads was abysmal and Knife Of Dreams was better than, say, the last three?

[Dr Trouble]

Soldiers Son by Hobb.
As a fan of almost all of her other works, I was delighted at the promise of a new series.
The first book was horrible! I couldn't even make myself buy the second.

A Crown of Stars series by Kate Elliot also let me down. I had been told that this was some pretty solid stuff, entertaining and intelligent.
All I saw was "Women are teh r0x0rs!!1" with a splash of, "Men are dumb!"
Although in saying that, some of her male characters were some of the most interesting I have read lately.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Whirlwind by James Clavell really was a letdown. What a crappy way to end such a brilliant series. I realize, this series is historical fiction, not fantasy, but a story about killing people with swords is a story about killing people with swords. Shogun, the first book, was amazing. Read it. Whirlwind could have been written by someone else.

[caladanbrood]

Every Robin Hobb book I've ever attempted to read.

[Rakov]

Magician - Feist. I came to it late. By the time I got round to reading it the whole 'baker's boy/farm boy with great destiny awaiting bit' was so long in the tooth it was positively rotten. I know that the book came out in the late 60s when the whole 'baker's boy/farm boy bit' wasn't long in the tooth, but I just could not get beyond that by the time I came to read it. Think the Empire series with Janny Wurts is great, BTW.

Otherland - Tad Williams. The multiple cast of characters. I kept coming across chapters involving characters I just didn't give a toss about and couldn't get through it. Also, one reason why I just do not get on very well with SF in general: the whole 'dig the concept man!' notion that you must buy into. I just don't usually dig it, ever, in SF. Blind spot on my part, I admit. (Of course, there might be some debate as to whether 'Otherland' is SF or/and Fantasy. I tend to think TW wanted to have his cake and eat it. Hell, he can keep that particular cake. Life's too short.)

The Iron Tree - Cecilia Dart-Thornton - God awful. Imaginatively arid, lazy fantasy by numbers, like the landscape so drably decribed in the early pages with likewise drab and dry as dust cardboard cut-out fantasy cliche characters; unforgiveably without any variety or fresh spin on them. I mean, who is reading this stuff and saying its good and publishing it? People with like minds, I guess. I believe she is a knowledgeable speaker on Celtic Myth on the convention circuits. That must be it then. And she does look like a bit of a blond 70s babe throwback that always goes down well in publishing campaigns. (No doubt get haranged for that remark!) That must be why the fiction stuff continues to get through. Or maybe just the Goodkind-effect: it's tried and true. It sells, Goddam it. Never read any other novel by her and don't feel much inclined to do so. Just to show I am open-minded I have her story in the Emerald Magic collection on my list of stuff to read in the second half of this year.

[Aptorian]

The Taking by Dean R Koontz left me confused and angry... after the disappointment left me.

Yeah I know, that's what I get for reading Dean R Koontz, but it was an easy 270 pages for a trainride. Basically the story is a doomsday story about the world being invaded by seemingly "Evil Magical Aliens" that are taking over dead people, planting aliens seed and chasing the children of the world.

A lot of double talk is revealed about sci-fi authors writings like Clark and Asimov, that's why everything is "so unlike" what people have heard about invasions by aliens. Yet clearly everything around the characters is religious/ethical in nature not scientific. It's clearly demons and evil souls that are messing with people... not aliens. Just a weak atempt by Koontz to disguise the complete lack of logic in his story.

Finally in the last 30 pages it's revealed that Satan travels between the stars and eats the souls of the sinfull in big mountainsize spaceships. And that angels in the form of dogs and cats are sent out to assist "guardian angels" in the form of "pure people" to help the kids, bla. bla. The ships leave and everything returns to normal, although 5-6 billion people are missing of course.

We are not told why seamen rained from the heavens, why satan was pumping billions of liters of water out of the oceans just to let it fall back to earth, why fungus and insects grew out of normal vegetation just to disappear again, why satans demons couldn't just kill the children, etc. etc.

Stupid book.

[Lorn]

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King was a very big disappointment. The serie died right then and there.

The Darkness that Comes Before, I had so high expectations since everyone here was raving mad about it. It was barely readable, I wanted everyone in it to die very slowly and painfully.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. Same thing, everyone here recomended it and it was awful. Could not even finish it.


Now I'm a little more careful about recomendations I get here

[Blind]

Bakker - The Warrior-Prophet. I had liked TDtCB, thought it was interesting, even though I hated Kellhus. But TWP was really annoying, and often dull. I'll probably still read the last book, to find out what happens, but I won't read his next trilogy.

Tad Williams - Shadowmarch. Enjoyed reading all his books, but this one felt like a rehash of MSaT.

Robin Hobb - Everything written after the original Assassin trilogy

[Mithfanion]

WH

Quote

I counted about half a dozen plot points that were not addressed and several characters literally left hanging in mid-air.

Interesting. Which plotlines were you thinking of ( Note that I am not defending the book or questioning what you stated, you are quite correct)? I am just curious to see which ones you'd be most interested in seeing continued.

Mith/Calibandar

[McLovin]

For me, it was the rushed and anticlimactic feel of The Thousandfold Thought that put a bad taste in my mouth. I felt there could have been more done with the meeting between Kellhus and Moenghus. And the ending part with Akka just read like a synopsis.

[stone monkey]

Olympos by Dan Simmons.
My disappointment with this knows no bounds. Ilium might be the best thing he'll ever write, Olympos reads like it's the sequel to a completely different book - one which I wouldn't have read.

[Cause]

Magician-Just no appeal, boring, cliche.

Wheel of time- in general now

Bonehunters-really dissapointed me. Usually after reading a SE book I wish it was longer this one I did not even read in a hurry

[Werthead]

Jen said:

@Werthead: You know I was thinking on that very point last night and I can't help but put Bonehunters in the category of being a bridge novel. A LOT of things happened in this novel, but at the same time...nothing happened. Cliffhangers were, as you say , epic in proportion. For that reason, Id say Bonehunters is more of a bridge novel than anything else. But, that set aside it was still an awesome read and I loved every page of it. It was only after I was done that these thoughts have come:p

Yes, I'd say that's true. The Bonehunters is the only book in the series (although House of Chains comes close) which does not stand alone. It's purely a mechanical plot contrivance, wheeling in the characters from the other books and putting them where they need to be for the next stage of the series. It's well-written and better than most epic fantasy out there, but still it feels like SE is writing something that has to be written for the series to work, rather than a story arc he's been looking forward to writing.

Quote

Interesting. Which plotlines were you thinking of ( Note that I am not defending the book or questioning what you stated, you are quite correct)? I am just curious to see which ones you'd be most interested in seeing continued.

I think the cliffhangers are pretty obvious: Icarium grinning on the boat; Karsa plotting one-man genocidal superviolence against Rhulad; Cutter and friends out at sea (literally), the Malazan Empire on the ropes, Kalam's unclear fate, what Paran is up to and so forth.

These cliffhangers mark a shift in the MBF's pace. Suddenly the story arc does not conclude or reach a natural 'resting point' as before, but just is left dangling in mid air (rather like Bakker's TTT, but let's not go there again ). Perhaps SE knew, as GRRM did with AFFC, that the next volume wouldn't be that long in following so he could dispense with his usual format and put the readers on the edge of their seats, waiting for the next installment, rather than giving them a sense of closure. It's a perfectly valid way of progressing a series, but disappointing given the sense of closure we've been used to in the past and it may herald the end of one of Erikson's strongest points in his favour (that his books are individual books which together make up a series, rather than one very long book chopped into multiple fragments)

[Sir Thursday]

stone monkey;107763 said:

Olympos by Dan Simmons.
My disappointment with this knows no bounds. Ilium might be the best thing he'll ever write, Olympos reads like it's the sequel to a completely different book - one which I wouldn't have read.

I felt something similar (although not quite as extreme) regarding Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by the same author. I really enjoyed Hyperion because of the Canterbury Tales style narrative and the vastly differing stories that were told. On the other hand, Fall of Hyperion did not have the stylistic framework to hold it up, which I believe led to portions of the book being a little garbled, especially relating to the Shrike. This really disappointed me.

I think a pattern that keeps coming up is that writers spend a much longer period writing their first book in a series to their second especially if they have been planning it for some time, and in the case of Bakker and in my opinion Simmons, it shows. You could argue something similar regarding Peter F. Hamilton and his Commonwealth Saga. Then, on the other hand, you have authors such as SE and GRRM whose writing improves as their series progress.

That brings me neatly round to another book that really disappointed me: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. This was due in part to many people who told me how amazing A Song of Ice and Fire was. While I do enjoy the series, I didn't really enjoy A Game of Thrones as much as I expected to. This was because instead of something fresh and original, I found that it was full of the standard fantasy/epic archetypes. Of course, later on the author plays around with those cliches a little, but this was not so evident in the first book of the series. His world felt a little small and empty after having just finished reading the sweeping Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Having read both series to their full extents as they currently stand, I appreciate A Song of Ice and Fire more, but I still prefer the Malazan Book of the Fallen hands down. I guess I never got over that initial impression...

Sir Thursday