[williamjm]

Dolorous Menhir;120058 said:

But you have to concede, the endings are a huge weakness in his books. Especially Misspent Youth, that was abyssmal.

I'm not keen on the endings of Night's Dawn and Fallen Dragon (particularly the latter), but out of the 7 endings I've read I'm only really unhappy with two of them (that's not to say there aren't things I could criticise about the other endings because there are), which isn't too bad a ratio I suppose. It is just unfortunate that what is his best story (Night's Dawn) has an unsatisfying ending that could have been done so much better IMO.

I've not been brave enough to read Misspent Youth yet, read too many negative comments (and seemingly no positive comments).

[Xaspian]

I read the first Thomas Covenant book (Lord Foul's Bane, IIRC), and that disappointed me. I had heard how good it was, and in all the recommendations in the front of tMbotF, it was called "The best thing since Thomas Convenant".
I got quite excited when I found a copy in my local library, and checked it out, but was disappointed.
I haven't fully ruled out the series yet, though. I still hold hop that it may improve, or that I might grow to like it...

Thud! by Terry Pratchett. I heard it was a new Vimes book, and got excited, but after reading it, I realised that the 'City Watch' theme is growing old. There's not much more that can be done with it, and Thud! just seemed to be running out of ideas. In the words of Colon, "It was better back in the old days, just the four of us against that dragon."

[Ratatoskr]

I got the 'Orcs' omnibus edition by Stan Nicholls from a once respected colleague of mine whose opinion I used to value. I knew the book from having seen it lie around in the bookstore, but I never would've picked it up myself, because I always thought the title, presentation, theme and the blurb all spelt doom. Well, this colleague gave it to me (as a present nonetheless), and I thought I'd give it a try. I respected his opinion after all, plus I hate it if you give people books and they don't read them (not that I myself haven't been guilty of that particular crime in the past, mind you. I still haven't gotten around to that copy of 'A Christmas Carol' my girlfirend gave me, like, years ago).
Boy, what a letdown that was. I haven't read such uninspired, clich?d, predictable, unoriginal and outright boring drivel since age fourteen, when I found Terry Brooks's 'Sword of Shannara' to be mildly entertaining, yet way too much a cheap rip-off of LOTR.

I stopped reading after the first novel (there are four in the omnibus edition).

So. Orcs. Nicholls. Disappointing? Hell, yeah.


BTW, new poster here. Hi all. Love the Malazan novels. Much more than you do, I',m sure.

[Werthead]

williamjm;120157 said:

I'm not keen on the endings of Night's Dawn and Fallen Dragon (particularly the latter), but out of the 7 endings I've read I'm only really unhappy with two of them (that's not to say there aren't things I could criticise about the other endings because there are), which isn't too bad a ratio I suppose. It is just unfortunate that what is his best story (Night's Dawn) has an unsatisfying ending that could have been done so much better IMO.

I've not been brave enough to read Misspent Youth yet, read too many negative comments (and seemingly no positive comments).

My review of Misspent Youth:

Quote

Misspent Youth was the eighth novel by British SF author Peter F. Hamilton, originally published in 2002. It is a stand-alone novel, but also serves as a prelude to his critically-acclaimed Commonwealth Saga (consisting of Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained).

Hamilton is most famous for his grandiose, giga-epic space operas such as the classic Night's Dawn Trilogy, but it is easy to forget he started his career much smaller in scale, with his trilogy of near-future detective novels starting Greg Mandel. Misspent Youth, although set in a different timeline, recalls those early days by having the story set circa 2040 in Britain, in and around Hamilton's own stomping ground of Rutland. The novel follows what happens to 77-year-old millionaire philanthropist Jeff Baker when he becomes the first human to undergo a complex rejeuvenation technique, which restores him to the physical age of 21, and the consequences of this on his trophy wife, his teenage son Tim and his friends.

Misspent Youth has the reputation of being Hamilton's weakest novel and it certainly is that. Hamilton has many great skills, including off-hand and easily comprehensible descriptions of high technology, great space battles, a furious pace and a knack for writing detective fiction. None of which is any help whatsoever in this novel. The book is something of a character study and a treatise on the emotional impact of the rejeuvenation technology, but although Hamilton can certainly create cool characters, he is less adept at providing them with onion-like layers of complexity and depth. His biggest mistake in Misspent Youth is making most of the characters inherently selfish and dislikable. Jeff Baker rapidly alienates his old friends by preferring to go clubbing rather than hanging out at the local rehashing arguments over whether Alien or Aliens is the better film and later seduces his son's 17-year-old girlfriend Annabel. Annabel herself is one of the three principal POVs we follow through the story (along with Jeff and Tim) and doesn't come across as particularly likable either, though amusingly her often thoughtlessly-selfish actions do ring true for a teenage character. The only halfway likable character is Tim, whose relationship with his father shifts convincingly back and forth several times in the book.

Whilst this plot unfolds in the foreground, Hamilton remembers to include his trademark superb worldbuilding and it's fascinating to watch the very earliest pieces of the culture of the later Intersolar Commonwealth slot into place. Baker is the inventor of the datasphere, forerunner to the universal data-storage system seen in the Commonwealth novels, and the story of how he invented it and why he gave away all business rights to it is actually the highlight of the novel. The datasphere may allow virtually instantaneous transmission of ideas, video and audio (tens of thousands times faster than broadband) but it has also single-handedly wiped out most of modern culture. No one makes films or releases music commercially any more as the datasphere allows pirate copies to be spread and downloaded in microseconds, beyond the ability of any data-protection system to neutralise, whilst bands and writers only work for personal pleasure. TV is also pretty much dead, save for repeats, news and soap operas. In an interesting scene real-life SF&F author Graham Joyce debates the rights and wrongs of this system with Tim and Hamilton certainly raises a worthy debate with this plot strand.

It's all rather subsumed by the soap-opera like character machinations though. Some may find the rather large number of sex scenes to be unnecessary, and the dislikable characters do make the story somewhat laborious to continue with at points. I'm guessing most won't find the ending that unpredictable either. However, Hamilton raises some good points and for once his technology isn't that too far off from what might actually be possible, and his willingness to address that through a character study rather than his typical massive war-in-space is an interesting move. Also, it's relatively short (400 pages) compared to his usual behemoths. Overall, not his best work and at times rather difficult to like, but he just scrapes through to make it worth reading. 3/5

For some time Misspent Youth was not available in the USA (although Amazon has some UK imports in stock). However, intriguingly a re-edited special American Edition of the novel was published in hardcover in August this year. It is unclear what changes have been made from the UK edition, although hopefully they will be for the good.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Here's my review of Misspent Youth:

Quote

Hamilton minus all the good bits (unless you are a huge fan of his graphic sex scenes, and there are so many of those you actually get tired of them).

Don't buy it.

Also, you forgot to mention the part where Baker sleeps with his best friend's granddaughter (who is a grown woman, I should note). The characters in this book are thoroughly unlikable, except for the Trophy Wives club, they were almost good value.

[Werthead]

A bit harsh. All the stuff on the death of popular culture due to the impact of being able to download any movie, game or piece of music nearly instantly seems strangely topical given the growing panic about internet piracy. But yes, it is Hamilton's weakest novel.

[williamjm]

Werthead;120468 said:

A bit harsh. All the stuff on the death of popular culture due to the impact of being able to download any movie, game or piece of music nearly instantly seems strangely topical given the growing panic about internet piracy. But yes, it is Hamilton's weakest novel.

I don't think your review is moving it any further up my list of things to be read, especially since the plot/setting sounds fairly similar in many ways to Vinge's "Rainbows End" (except not as good) which I read last month.

[The .303 bookworm]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;107663 said:

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.

Hell yes, I loved the Asian Saga so much, and then I finally got Whirlwind and "Er, why the hell does this suck so much"[Me].
It's the only Clavell book I have that I didn't finish

[ChrisW]

Feist has become dissapointing. Sad to see him go into self destruct mode. I dont believe he's writing for the pleasure of it sometimes.


I'm pretty sure I read that he writes for the money. That was from him, something about his wife leaving him and stuff. Mb i'm imagining things.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

The .303 bookworm;121315 said:

Hell yes, I loved the Asian Saga so much, and then I finally got Whirlwind and "Er, why the hell does this suck so much"[Me].
It's the only Clavell book I have that I didn't finish

Exactly what happened to me. I had to force myself through it, so I could say I have read the entire series. NOt that anyone has ever asked me, but it bugged me not to have finished it. Plus I kept waiting for it to turn good. It doesn't.

[Dr Trouble]

ChrisW;121317 said:

Feist has become dissapointing. Sad to see him go into self destruct mode. I dont believe he's writing for the pleasure of it sometimes.


I'm pretty sure I read that he writes for the money. That was from him, something about his wife leaving him and stuff. Mb i'm imagining things.

I read that also. He needs to write now to support himself or something.

... Women!

[williamjm]

ChrisW;121317 said:

Feist has become dissapointing. Sad to see him go into self destruct mode. I dont believe he's writing for the pleasure of it sometimes.


I'm pretty sure I read that he writes for the money. That was from him, something about his wife leaving him and stuff. Mb i'm imagining things.

Well, he is a professional author. Most of them write for the money (as well as possibly other motivations). It is noticeable, however, that the number of books released increased about the time he was going through his divorce.

[Werthead]

Feist has sold about 20 million books and, according to his own publicity, is the biggest-selling fantasy author in the USA after Rowling and Jordan, and in the UK after Rowling, Pratchett and Jordan. I think he could probably afford to retire tomorrow and never work again, unless those alimony payments are a real killer (and I have no absolutely 0% knowledge of US divorce law).

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Standard deal if there isn't a prenup is the exwife gets 50%, more if there are kids involved. This is regardless of if they were married when the man made the money or not.

[Morgoth]

this is why norwegian inheritance law is so much better..

In the US he might very well have had to hand his wife not only 50% of what he owned, but also what he'll make in the future on things written while they were together

[Aptorian]

She take my money when I'm in need
Yea she's a trifflin friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digga way over time
That dig's on me

If you aint no punk holla We Want Prenup
WE WANT PRENUP!, Yeaah
It's something that you need to have
Cause when she leave yo ass she gone leave with half

This song says it all, I've never understood the american divorce laws. I mean I can understand if people need the money to survive but if we're talking about 10s of millions of dollars, there's no way in hell that a wife deserves to munch of her exhusbands work for the rest of her life unless she gets remarried.

When I hear about those moviestar divorces were the wife, who's a nobody, takes 250 million dollars of her husbands hard eaned dough... I'd kill her, maybe that was what was on OJ's mind when he went slicing and dicing.

[Morgoth]

well, in Norway, the divorced couple subtract from the total wealth whatever they brought into the marriage. So Feist would be able to keep the fortune and the rights to what he did up until the marriage. Whatever was brought in during their marriage is shared equally unless they have an agreement that states otherwise. Special gifts, inheritance etc directed at one of the two will also be excempt from the 50/50 share.

There's also some special rules on intelectual rights, tho I'm not so sure about them..

conclusions: Norway good. US bad

[Lister of Smeg]

Another vote for Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy. I bought the first two books because so many people said it was brilliant, but I hated it. I only read the second one because I hate wasting money. No chance I'm going to read the third one. Horrible writing, horrible characters.

A Feast for Crows, by GRRM. I loved his first three books, and he's still my second favourite author, but this book was an atrocity. I forced myself to read it all, but I felt as if I could have skipped the book and not really missed anything of importance. And now I really want to see Brienne die. Her chapters were the worst of a bad bunch.

This isn't going to be popular, but I'd also have to include Night of Knives by ICE. I was really excited about this book, about seeing some of the background to Kellanved et al, but it was horrible, completely boring. I can't think of a single redeeming feature in it.

[The Crazy Mob]

I'm going to have to agree about Fiest his early stuff seemed so much more heartfelt or something. He seems to be just adding characters (and bringing back old ones ,Why oh why is HE back in Into a Dark Realm! ) and adventures ad hoc. It all went bad after the sepent war for me.