Any well known authors in any genre that you just can't read?

[ErikB]

I read a variety of books and while sci fi and fantasy are favorites for entertainment I do read other books. Often recommendations from others or simply popular writers.

The one author I simply cannot read because of how he writes which bores me to tears or just annoys me is Stephen King.

The only book of his that I've ever been able to get all the way through was Pet Cemetery.

I have tried over the years with varied success rates.

I got 3 chapters into Fire Starter, 7 chapters into Cujo, 9 chapters into Christine, 11 into Carry, and the list of attempted reads goes on.

Something about the way King writes makes me lose interest and stop reading. At least they've made movies if I wish to catch some King tales. His writing just escapes me...

How about you? Any popular writers (regardless of genre) that you just can't get through?

 

[Alex The G and T]

I'm with you on Stephen King; though I real enjoy "The Bachman Tales." ( An anthology published under the pseudonym "Bachman."

Edit: Excuse me, that's the Bachman Books. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0451147367/?tag=id2100-20

And that Thomas Covenant thing, by Donaldson, irritated me. I barely made it through the first trilogy.

The first one was a pretty good rip-off of LOTR, with a spectacular ending. Then the whole whiney business of the leprosy became increasingly annoying to the point where I couldn't read any more..

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Robin Hobb and Joe Abercrombie for me. Which is weird because they both write close, character voices like I do. Perhaps it's something to do with that - that my own voice gets in the way. But, yep, I find them both hard despite having tried quite a few times, especially with Joe.

 

[Toby Frost]

A lot of fantasy and a small amount of science fiction leaves me pretty cold, but I find it hard to explain why. There’s a sense of mild disappointment I get from some books. It might be because I find it hard to immerse myself in very long stories. I am not good at remembering a large number of characters, and I find that long series always run the risk of becoming soap opera. Another part of it is the YA-ness of a lot of fantasy: I would much rather read about skilled adults in a fantasy land than what are, in effect, “origin stories”.

Personally, I thought that The First Law began very well, but became overwhelmed with its own cynicism, which I didn’t feel was as clever and fresh as it was meant to be.

I have deliberately avoided reading any Douglas Adams. Years ago, I started The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and thought it was like Monty Python, but weaker. To be honest, the geeky adulation he gets is a bit offputting. Even if his stuff is as good as it’s cracked up to be, I don’t want to find myself imitating his style in my own comedy writing.

 

[Hex]

George RR Martin and most of his imitators. I tend to find them heavy, humourless and dull (also, disgusting in their excitement about the nasty bits of stories).

Also Scott Lynch, to my ongoing distress. I'd like to be able to read his work. I just can't.

For a long time I couldn't read Cassandra Clare because her style made me want to scream. I overcame that by reading something she wrote with Holly Black, but it still makes me twitch.

 

[Gnrevolution]

Probably gonna get a lot of hate for this but I've tried a couple of Iain M. Banks Culture novels and I just felt disappointed by them, possibly because of the adulation they get elsewhere. Managed to read Consider Phlebas, Player of Games and Use of Weapons (I was persistent based on friends insisting they were awesome) and just couldn't get along with any of them, so haven't bothered reading any others. And yet I loved The Wasp Factory (admittedly not sci-fi), I think it's more the setting of the Culture books than anything else...

 

[Randy M.]

Started a George Pelecanos mystery and bounced off hard. I haven't tried him again, which is unusual for me.

Read Lee Child's first Reacher novel. It was good for 20-25 pages but at some point Reacher turned into all-knowing superman so I won't go back.

Charles Frazier: What did everyone else see in Cold Mountain that I missed? 50 pages in and I stopped. Also unusual for me but it was the reading equivalent of walking through waist-deep molasses.

I found Hitchhiker... mildly amusing but no more so I haven't gone on. I do think, from Jo Walton's description, that I might give Dirk Gently... a try eventually.

Randy M.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Probably gonna get a lot of hate for this but I've tried a couple of Iain M. Banks Culture novels and I just felt disappointed by them, possibly because of the adulation they get elsewhere. Managed to read Consider Phlebas, Player of Games and Use of Weapons (I was persistent based on friends insisting they were awesome) and just couldn't get along with any of them, so haven't bothered reading any others.

Me too. Tried Against A Dark Background, and didn't much like it, though I did finish it. Tried Feersum Enjin and didn't much like it...

 

[Dan Jones]

I always liked the ideas in Feersum Enjin but never quite thought they were executed quite right. 6/10 for effort on Banks's part, though...

 

[Toby Frost]

Banks is a tricky one. I’ve liked the Culture novels that I’ve read – The Player of Games and Consider Phlebas, and Use of Weapons somewhat less – but they’re not perfect. For one thing, I don’t find him funny, and a lot of people do (those annoying spaceship names!). For another, he is capable of books that are flabby (The Algebraist) or plain bad (A Song of Stone). Also, he is writing a specific kind of SF: space opera without obvious heroics and without the libertarian politics you see in quite a lot of stuff from the US.

That said, he did write some very good books. I’d just approach with slightly more caution than some of the reviews might suggest.

 

[The Big Peat]

Sanderson. I've picked up three different books of his and put them down in 10 or 20 pages. Maybe this will change if I give him a real protracted go and one day I will give him that protracted go so I can be absolutely sure on this. However, I am quite dubious on this now, as there's something about his authorial voice I find straight up jarring.

 

[Nick B]

Robert Jordan. Wheel of Time, ugh, utterly boring and predictable rubbish.

The Honor Harrington books, was that David Weber? Totaly dislikable MC, sorry.

 

[ratsy]

Well I love all the authors you all hate!

King, Hobb, Sanderson, Abercrombie...are all authors I anxiously await for new releases from

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Robert Jordan. Wheel of Time, ugh, utterly boring and predictable rubbish.

The Honor Harrington books, was that David Weber? Totaly dislikable MC, sorry.

Yeah - tried Honor Harrington, sure I'd like it, and hated them.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Robin Hobb is imo the most outstanding writer of character in fantasy.

 

[The Big Peat]

Robin Hobb is imo the most outstanding writer of character in fantasy.

I think I agree with that and yet, despite loving character based fiction, she's not an author who I read compulsively.


Separate note, but I'm really rather wary of trying Malazan after reading Willful Child by Erikson.

 

[Vince W]

G. R. R. Martin. I've given up on his series.
James. S. A. Corey. Dreadful bilge.
Brandon Sanderson. Another writer by the kilo I don't like.
Joe Abercrombie. I've tried multiple times to read The First Law and put it down every time.

 

[Randy M.]

I think I agree with that and yet, despite loving character based fiction, she's not an author who I read compulsively.

That might be the most frustrating thing for a reader, trying to figure why a writer who, by all available signs, should be perfect for you just doesn't inspire you at all. I had that with Ray Bradbury for years. Didn't care for Fahrenheit 451, started a love/hate relationship with Something Wicked This Way Comes, mostly didn't like The Golden Apples of the Sun, and then I finally decided to try The Martian Chronicles and then The October Country and all the cogs meshed and I've been a fan ever since. I probably wouldn't have kept trying if I hadn't read and loved "The Foghorn" and "The Homecoming" in anthologies.


Randy M.

 

[DZara]

There are a lot of really revered writers I've really tried to like, and my friends and I have debated over the wisdom of giving them up, but I just can't read them anymore unless it's for class, and even then under protest.

I can't read Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Francis Bacon (oy vey the man!), Guy de Maupassant, Ernest Hemingway, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Charles Bukowski gives me a rash. Joseph Conrad's a really hard sell. Gabriel Garcia Marquez I just don't get at all. I also avoid Roald Dahl for the most part, although I did like Matilda very much.

I also gave up Saki, Ambrose Bierce, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote.

There's something very freeing about finally being able to let writers of this caliber go their way, when I did. It feels more like I can be me, and like who I like. And I did give them lots of chances, but ultimately things just didn't work out between us.

 

[Dan Jones]

That said, he did write some very good books. I’d just approach with slightly more caution than some of the reviews might suggest.

I found his mainstream fare preferable to his SFF stuff for some reason, when by all accounts it should be the other way around. But he has an eye for the macabre in the banal (wasp factory, business, Crow Road - the latter of which has the best opening line ever) that doesn't quite sit so well in the SF universe, IMO.