Books You Should Like But Don't

[GrantG]

I at least kind of like most of the classics, but there are a few books most SF&F fans would say are essential that I just can't get into. For me, that would be a lot of Heinlein's stuff, in particular Starship Troopers.

What are your guilty non-pleasures?

 

[j d worthington]

Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage. It won the the Nebula Award for 1968, but I am afraid I found the book dull, predictable, and simply boring; it felt like something which was "done by the numbers", and I would have expected better from Panshin than that....

 

[jojajihisc]

I probably like more classics that I read than not, but not by as much as might be typical. I thought Rite of Passage was boring as well. Some others I didn't particularly enjoy are Dorsai, The Anubis Gates, and The Man in the High Castle. There are others that I think that if I were to read again some day I'd probably like better such as A Canticle for Leibowitz and Neuromancer because I appreciate their importance to the field and I've become a better, more patient reader.

 

[dask]

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND by Robert A. Heinlein.

 

[Pyan]

There's been a similar thread in the past:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/35828-books-that-oddly-dont-catch-you.html

that may interest readers of this one...

 

[Allegra]

The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
The Prefect - Alastair Reynolds

And everything Kafka

 

[steve12553]

I had trouble with The Man in the High Castle but I suspect I'll pick it up at some time in the future and see it in a diiferent light and enjoy it. I find that true with many books. My reading tastes change over time and even cycle. As far as abook done "by the numbers", sometimes in an old enough book, the author wrote the equation. I aways have trouble with negative threads like these (although this isn't horribly negative like some) because minds change with time and exposure to events. What's dull today may be thrilling in five years because of an acquired knowledge of some nuance. I figure that if I live long enough (10,000 years or so) I may need to enjoy every book ever written.

 

[Moontravler]

What are your guilty non-pleasures?

I love the way you phrased that....

Mostly more mainstream classics, like Dickens, Tolstoy (War and Peace is just so loong that I invariably lose interest somewhere along the way), Salinger, and yeah, even Kafka, Poe and sometimes Lovecraft -but also Asimov's robots, and most stories where androids tend to be the main focus. I hate stories that make robots/androids "more human than humans" :-/

 

[Vertigo]

Shakespeare - OMG what a confession . Maybe it's just a lack of education but I just stuggle to understand them. they were thrust down our throats at school which probably didn't help. I have a beautifully bound complete works book which I attempt every now and then but just can't get going . I'm afraid the same goes for many of the classics like Dickens etc. No problem with the understanding there, but I just think I stuggle with the older fashioned style of writing. A later English Literature teacher despaired of me then started giving me John Wyndham to read and so it all started... Top marks to him for understanding me better than I did myself though.

 

[Connavar]

The Anubis Gates - Tim Powers, by one of my alltime fav authors but i cant understand whats so good with it. It started great but then got dull,felt like alot of potential wasted.

The Fellowship of the Ring - not alot i can say but i really tried but then im not fan of epic fantasy in general.

Hyperion - Dan Simmons
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

 

[HareBrain]

I had trouble with The Man in the High Castle but I suspect I'll pick it up at some time in the future and see it in a diiferent light and enjoy it.

I hope you do -- it's one of my favourites.

My own "what am I not getting about this?" book was the much lauded The Riddle-Master of Hed. For me, it felt like it had a kind of glamour cast on it, like one of those beautiful faerie feasts that turn out to be only three-day-old bread. The beginning of the sequel was even worse. But people whose opinion I respect liked it, so, rich tapestry, etc.

 

[soulsinging]

I think Catcher in the Rye is supremely overrated. Holden was a whiny little **** and I wanted him to just go home and go to bed.

I sort of felt this way about Dune. It was impressive in some senses, but parts of it were just bizarre, like all the non-sensible time meditations. That said, it seems to have left a mark on me because I still think about it and keep it around intending to re-read it one day.

The big one for me is Best Served Cold. Abercrombie is well loved around here (for good reason) and I was blown away by the First Law trilogy. But this book just didn't do it for me. Someone said the First Law ending seemed cruel just for the sake of being different and I disagreed, but I do think it kind of applies to Best Served Cold. First Law had some weight to it, like what was going on was important, and the characters were all compelling. This one seemed a bit too glib... like a novel version of Quentin Tarantino. It works for film because slick, joky dialogue given by hip but generic characters is fine for a brief 2 hour flick, but over an 800 page novel... it started to wear thin. I'll still be checking out Heroes though.

 

[Moontravler]

Ok, one I feel really bad about is Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass. Because all of my friends praised this book to high heaven - in fact there doesn't seem to be a soul on earth who does not absolutely adore this book - I yawningly forced myself to read 100 odd pages of this book...- but I find it so boring - when does the story actually start to get interesting? I've put it aside for now.

Another book that everyone in the world absolutely adored was Harry Potter 1 - all except me (it seems) who found it relatively juvenille and cliche. I did enjoy the movies, though.

On the other hand, I adore Tolkien, and I saw in the other thread about "books that don't grab you" that lots of people don't like Tolkien. Oh, and I like Mervyn Peake as well, and I love Gene Wolfe's New Sun series - which also does not seem to be very popular with the "in" crowd.

So yeah - it takes all kinds...
This is why I like the chrons. Lots of different tastes represented here.

 

[j d worthington]

As far as abook done "by the numbers", sometimes in an old enough book, the author wrote the equation.

While this can indeed be the case, with this one, the formula had (in essence) been around since Methuselah was in nappies, and even the science-fiction take on it had been around since at least the 1920s.

I suppose one could make a case that Panshin boiled it all down to its essential elements, but I consider that more a task for the more basic forms of criticism than for writing a novel (unless one then does something quite creative as well as self-reflexive with it, as Delaney has done on occasion). The problem is that this was neither entertaining nor thought-provoking, but simply... dull.

 

[CyBeR]

'Twilight'....why oh WHY can't I enjoy this book that is so loved by million upon millions of girls everywhere?
...
Oh right...on account on me not having a period and actually using some part of my brain in a relationship.

(I apologize to any offended ladies here...I was merely joking).

Seriously though, I find myself in the position of can't standing Emil Cioran. He's a philosopher that wrote of dark and ominous things, and whom is quoted by every highschool prick goth-wannabe in Romania. I tried reading him once or twice, even got a book of his now to try...but I find his philosophy to be merely ego stroking on his own part, of the kind "I'm so efing brilliant!". I find it juvenile now (when every teenager is an angst factory), and really useless as literature.

 

[Moggle]

I at least kind of like most of the classics, but there are a few books most SF&F fans would say are essential that I just can't get into. For me, that would be a lot of Heinlein's stuff, in particular Starship Troopers.

What are your guilty non-pleasures?

Starship Troopers was impossible for me to finish. It was readable at least, but it takes supreme effort to get thru because nothing really happens in the book. I know, I know, the book isn't about action. I'm sorry, but I need to keep awake in order to read. Lord of the Rings is guilty of the same thing. You can literally doze off while reading that. Why people think it's so great is beyond me.

 

[soulsinging]

Another book that everyone in the world absolutely adored was Harry Potter 1 - all except me (it seems) who found it relatively juvenille and cliche. I did enjoy the movies, though.

I'd encourage you to press on. Books 1 and 2 are kinda juvenile and cliche, but fun for that. I think the real reason adults love them is looking back with fondness. The series grows exceptionally more adult and complex around book 3, and especially book 5 and beyond. It's truly an incredible achievement, and even though the first 2 are a bit childish, they're worth reading to get to what comes after. Don't let them turn you off!

 

[Moontravler]

I'd encourage you to press on. Books 1 and 2 are kinda juvenile and cliche, but fun for that. I think the real reason adults love them is looking back with fondness. The series grows exceptionally more adult and complex around book 3, and especially book 5 and beyond. It's truly an incredible achievement, and even though the first 2 are a bit childish, they're worth reading to get to what comes after. Don't let them turn you off!

Thanks for the heads-up, Soulsinging! Upon your recommendation, I'll endeavour to skim through book 2 to get to #3, and who knows, book 2 might even just grab me at some point...

I think it didn't help that I already knew most of the story from the film, while reading the first book, and the Cinderella -type scenario of poor little rejected kid having to put up with spoilt cousin is what really felt most cliche to me.

Like you say, though, the focus does change later on, and one could see a darkening and increased subtelty in the movies too.

 

[CyBeR]

I have recently watched 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire', with the book very fresh in my mind. Conclusion?
IGNORE THE FILMS!

The 'Harry Potter' films are on the opposite spectrum of 'The lord of the rings' films. While the later succeeded in adding as much from the books to the films, the first ones are barely even sketches of the original story. The number 4 film in particular is a merely 25% of content and growth found in the book, and it explains really nothing.
Yeah, I would also recommend putting up with the first couple of books until you reach the 3rd and 4th...they're pretty good, although by the 4th you're already thinking the overall plot should become a bit more involved.

Reading the Terry Pratchett thread here, and on goodreads about a certain book, I realized I fall a bit weird into the Discworld fans: I didn't like 'Mort', almost at all, nor do I like 'Reaper man'...and that is funny, because I really like Death as a character.

 

[Diggler]

I have to agree with the OP about Heinlein. While I didn't really mind Starship Troopers, Heinlein does go into too much technical detail.

Man in the High Castle, for me, just made no sense? This is most likely to do with it being the first PKD novel I read, though a re-read will be in order in the future.