Books you SHOULDN'T like but DO!!!

[slack]

Terry Goodkind - The Wizards First Rule. I read it a few years ago and loved it.

Same here. It was enough to propel me through the first four books, and then all of a sudden I'm reading about talking chickens and an emperor antagonist that wasn't at all interesting, and I'm like, to hell with this.

 

[StirlingNewberry]

CS Lewis' space trilogy.

 

[Fried Egg]

I don't read books that I shouldn't like, only books that I should like.

 

[D_Davis]

I don't read books that I shouldn't like

I don't think anybody does. It's a realization that comes after something has been read.

 

[nixie]

The Morganville Vampire books by Rachel Caine.

 

[soulsinging]

I think Biodroid was talking about the Terry Goodkind books, SS, but what you say is true.

The Mission Earth books started of (I don't believe I'm going to say this) quite well, but they degenerated very quickly into sleazy sex tales, and from plumbing the fathoms only got worse after Hubbard died and his wife finished the series. I could not say whether they were the foundation of Scientology - they were written years after Hubbard had founded the uhhh movement. But if they were then I could see no logical basis for any... ah, I see your point.

That might make more sense.

And you could be right, I've never read Hubbard. I was simply under the impression the Battlefield Earth was to scientology what the big book is to AA or the Bible to Christians.

 

[thatollie]

Same here. It was enough to propel me through the first four books, and then all of a sudden I'm reading about talking chickens and an emperor antagonist that wasn't at all interesting, and I'm like, to hell with this.

Why did no one tell me there were talking chickens in the later books? I need to give Goodkind another chance.

 

[J-Sun]

That might make more sense.

And you could be right, I've never read Hubbard. I was simply under the impression the Battlefield Earth was to scientology what the big book is to AA or the Bible to Christians.

IIRC (yes, I read it... once... a long time ago... ), Battlefield Earth had nothing to do with Scientology (unless dribbled in sneakily) - it was just retro-pulp. I think the Mission Earth dekology (urf - which I have not read and will never read) was a sort of novelization of Scientology (I started to say "fictionalization" but that would be redundant) but even that may not be the case. I'm just pretty sure it is.

 

[steve12553]

Haters gonna hate.

The word "hater" barely qualifies as a word because it lacks an object. Since everyone has emotions everyone hates something or someone. You might as well say "people". "Haters" as a word is a contrivence of the "commenting" generation who add their two cents to a new article of the top of their head because technology makes it very easy to anonomously post their most useless thoughts and opinions that most of the time would merely drop out of their consciousness if effort were required to put it out their. I hate that.

 

[steve12553]

I feel better now.

 

[steve12553]

On topic I have enjoyed the 4 or 5 Dan Brown books I've read inspite of the reviews that call them light and mindless and also the 7 or 8 Micheal Crichton books I've read. (Sometimes you just don't need to have your brain turned up to 10)

 

[steve12553]

I feel better now.

 

[Hypnos164]

The Morganville Vampire books by Rachel Caine.

These and the Weather Warden books.

 

[FeedMeTV]

Twilight also.

... I know.

I don't think HP should be classed as a guilty pleasure, I love it and would defend it with my dying breath.

 

[Terrible Tempest]

I want to give you a very sarcastic "thanks a lot" for that link... I must've spent 7 hours putzing around that site yesterday!

You are so welcome. Really. I mean it.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

The word "hater" barely qualifies as a word because it lacks an object. Since everyone has emotions everyone hates something or someone. You might as well say "people". "Haters" as a word is a contrivence of the "commenting" generation who add their two cents to a new article of the top of their head because technology makes it very easy to anonomously post their most useless thoughts and opinions that most of the time would merely drop out of their consciousness if effort were required to put it out their. I hate that.

While I don't have anything against the poster who wrote that, I admit to sharing Steve's pet-peeviness with the word. A related irritation is with the word "fanboy".

On topic - I suppose my guilty pleasure would be Dan Brown. I've read his first four books, and while Digital Fortress and Deception Point weren't great, I rather enjoyed Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code. In fact, I even have The Lost Symbol on my (growing) TBR list. Yeah, I said it!

Related to Fantasy (this is an SFF forum, after all)... does The Wheel of Time count? On the one hand, it is a hugely popular and fairly well-received series. On the other, it sure has its share of detractors. Perhaps I can clarify my position by admitting that I actually like it quite a bit. Even the 'boring' books in the middle (7 - 10, if I recall) weren't that bad. I recognized the pointlessness of them, to be sure, but I still devoured them, even as I was seething at the 10,673rd mention of Nynaeve tugging her braid.

 

[soulsinging]

While I don't have anything against the poster who wrote that, I admit to sharing Steve's pet-peeviness with the word. A related irritation is with the word "fanboy"

I actually think hater is one of the few terms that has come out of internet slang that IS meaningful. How is it any different from the way sport enthusiasts say they admire a player for being a "competitor"? Everyone has human urges and actions and so everyone at some point competes for something and there's not necessarily a particular object in the context it's always used. It's just a convenient way of simplifying "a person who perpetually espouses characteristics of hatred/competition even in situations where it's not necessarily warranted or meaningful."

The entire POINT of the term is its lack of object... it's a way a way of saying that a given person is letting a quirk like that basically define their reputation or character (eg. the US Tea Party and Barack Obama... he could cure cancer and world hunger single-handed tomorrow and they'd still want him tarred and feathered).

I think the issue is the way it's often used as a dismissive way of avoiding having to address legit criticism. For instance, when a given athlete is not terribly talented but is well regarded for their effort, they are called a competitor, which is basically a way of analysts trying to compliment them when there's really nothing in their actual performance to compliment. Hater serves the same function... it describes someone who seems to have a critical opinion of a given entity for no apparent lucid reason, but people tend to use it to ignore or avoid responding to reasoned criticism of a work they are passionate about. Ironically, it is usually "fanboy" types (another term I find acceptable in that it essentially describes someone whose love for a given entity leads them to idealize it and regard any critique of it as unfounded but is also often misused as an insult by people who are frustrated that their criticism isn't accepted as fact by the person defending the entity) that are eager to use the term hater.

Thus you tend to see the term thrown around in a vicious circle of mental midgets incapable of intelligent debate that just resort to using it as an insult to imply it's the other person who's being unreasonable when it's usually both of them. But that doesn't mean the term itself is meaningless and all uses of it are unjustified.

 

[j d worthington]

[...]the US Tea Party and Barack Obama... he could cure cancer and world hunger single-handed tomorrow and they'd still want him tarred and feathered).[...]

Actually, I think you're being a little unfair. You left out "and run out of town on a rail".....

Hmmm. For my entry here, I suppose I'd have to list some of Brian Lumley's work. Pure pulp, and not of the higher end of the pulps. Yet, for some reason, I still tend to read Lumley and enjoy a goodly amount of his work. True, occasionally, he has something that really is good; but those are rare. Mostly, his work is... literarily wanting, to put it kindly; but I still have an affection for it -- and, having seen him in an interview or two, a definite liking for Lumley himself.

 

[HoopyFrood]

I...er...quite enjoyed the Dan Brown books. Especially The Da Vinci Code. As someone's just pointed out, I read the book before it became a film, before everyone started saying how bad they were, and I rather like puzzles and riddles so all that aspect of the plot was enjoyable. I read it before I went to Paris, so when I got that, I practically did my own Da Vinci Code, running around to find the paintings mentioned in it.

There's also a book that I got free with a magazine once (yeah, one of those girl magazines, hey I was about to go on a long journey, had no reading material and a free book was better than nowt) and I...loved it. Pretty much very chick lit, but really enjoyable! Gah...

 

[Hypnos164]

Stumbled onto a funny review of a book that seems to fall into this catagory for N. K. Jemisin - sums up the whole "shouldn't like it, but do" thing very well: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/133512830