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

[Hex]

I haven't read beyond Look to Windward, but I liked the ship names (sorry, Toby) and I like the way Banks plays with the reader and teases them -- and you know he's playing with you and hiding things, but you know it's deliberate and he's working round to something, so it's like a game. I liked a lot of his Iain Banks novels too, though I've never managed The Wasp Factory, and I think I stopped reading before The Firm.

Douglas Adams works best if you read him as a young teenager, I think. Or that was my experience.

Glad someone else finds the David Webbers unreadable -- I got a couple when Baen (?) were doing free books and tried... and tried... and totally failed.

(I love Hobb, and I thought The First Law trilogy was as close to perfect as anything I've read -- he's too intense for me, though, so I haven't read anything else by Abercrombie).

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm definitely in the minority about the ship names!

I think I tried the first Honor Harrington and didn't feel it was my kind of thing. That said, it's always hard to tell with the first book in a series.

 

[The Bluestocking]

Stephen King... which is odd given that I generally love the premises of his stories and some of the film adaptations of them but can't seem to get past the first 50 pages of any of his books. His son Joe Hill's books and style are more my speed (HEART-SHAPED BOX is creepy as all get out).

I also blanch at trying to tackle the doorstops written by most epic Fantasy authors EXCEPT for Robin Hobb (I even got through the SOLDIER SON trilogy) and I am currently tackling Steven Erikson's MALAZAN series at my own pace. Fact is - most grimdark stuff puts me right off because the violence seems neverending and gratuitous.

And for some authors, I can really get into some of their books but not others. Case in point: Tad Williams. Love his OTHERWORLD quartet and his BOBBY DOLLAR books but cannot get through his epic fantasy series. Ditto Brandon Sanderson - love his superhero series and YA books but cannot deal with his epic fantasy stuff. Not really into Roald Dahl's children's books but I love his wickedly sharp short stories!

Back in my uni and post-grad days, I generally steered clear of the Byron, Keats, and Shelley... and yes, Hardy. Hardy is... BLEH!

Not a big fan of poets and poetry either although I absolutely ADORE Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost aren't half bad either.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Umm... Brandon Sanderson, China Melville, Tolkien - I do like epic fantasy just not theirs.

 

[hitmouse]

Barbara Cartland, giant of the Mills & Boon romance novel genre. Cannot read her. Mind you I have trouble reading any of that particular genre.

 

[Clockworkbot]

Salman Rushdie is meant to be one of the greatest modern British writers, but I really struggle with his stuff. I think it may be to do with the 'magic realist' style which just makes me cringe a bit. Someone else mentioned Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who also uses that style - I found A Hundred Years of Solitude pretty boring, but I do like Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

 

[Toby Frost]

I hate to say it, but I do wonder what would happen if I went back to the Golden Age writers now. The only one of them that I feel a great wish to read again is Frank Herbert's Dune, perhaps because it's a bit like Gormenghast (at least, in my mind).

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I hate to say it, but I do wonder what would happen if I went back to the Golden Age writers now. The only one of them that I feel a great wish to read again is Frank Herbert's Dune, perhaps because it's a bit like Gormenghast (at least, in my mind).

You'd probably be horrified by the clunky style and content...

I re-read Dune a good few years ago, and it definitely stands up well; as does Gormenghast. Neither of these books though follow a style - they are unique. I think that helps when they're viewed from the perspective of 50-odd years later.

 

[Toby Frost]

The last time I started re-reading Foundation – which was 10 years ago, so I may well be remembering this wrongly – I was struck by how much it was like the 1950s.

Dune and Gormenghast are both great books. I agree that it’s the lack of precedent for either that works so well. I have the feeling that the people who wrote Warhammer when I was young (less so now) had read nothing else except perhaps The Lord of the Rings and Elric.

Two books I never really “got” were The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and Ghost Story by Peter Straub.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I read a few Asimovs, Heinleins and Clarkes in my youth, but there's no way I'd be able to stomach the first two now. Clarke is a bit different - though he was very much of his time, I think he was the best ideas man of the three, and that makes his work a bit more palatable.

 

[BAYLOR]

I read Dune about 30 years ago and liked it but I don't think I could I ever reread it. Wasn't able to finish book 2.

 

[aThenian]

Another one who struggles with Iain M. Banks - have tried listening to it on audio as well as reading it, and somehow just don't understand it. But have enjoyed his non-sci fi stuff.

Neal Stephenson - I think he writes the most brilliant prose. Stunning. But as I read on my interest begins to peter out...there doesn't always seem to a story there, just a series of more and more unrelated and (in the case of the Baroque Trilogy) fanciful events. Keep meaning to go back to it and read on to see if all becomes clear, but have the feeling I would just get to the end of it and think "what was that about?"

Classics - Dickens.

Contemporary Literary Fiction - Ian McEwan, what a waste of time (Amsterdam, On Chesil Beach, Saturday - couldn't bear them). Actually there's probably a long list of literary fiction I don't get on with...

 

[Frost Giant]

Frank Herbert. I knew someone once who stated that he admired David Lynch for "carving a film out of the block-of-wood book that is Dune." I couldn't help but concur.

 

[Randy M.]

Douglas Adams works best if you read him as a young teenager, I think. Or that was my experience.

I suspect that's true of several other writers, too, like Edgar Rice Burroughs (in my 20s after 2-3 books I gave up; too juvenile), H. P Lovecraft (who I began reading at the right age to get caught up in it), maybe Robert E. Howard, Asimov and Heinlein.

Oh, I've remembered another writer I've never got on with: C. S. Lewis, in what I've read, preaches to the choir. I'm not part of the choir, so no matter how well-written, it puts me off. I have a similar but much weaker reaction to G. K. Chesterton, who I at least find entertaining.


Randy M.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I suspect that's true of several other writers, too, like Edgar Rice Burroughs (in my 20s after 2-3 books I gave up; too juvenile), H. P Lovecraft (who I began reading at the right age to get caught up in it), maybe Robert E. Howard, Asimov and Heinlein.

Anne McCaffrey was mine - I loved Pern as a teen but when I went to read it with my daughter I didn't enjoy it.

 

[Bick]

I read a few Asimovs, Heinleins and Clarkes in my youth, but there's no way I'd be able to stomach the first two now. Clarke is a bit different - though he was very much of his time, I think he was the best ideas man of the three, and that makes his work a bit more palatable.

This is interesting, because as I've gotten older I've also become far more critical of literary merit, writing style and ideas. And yet I've read much Asimov and Heinlein in the last 5 years and of all the venerable authors they still stack up well. I'm increasingly of the view that Asimov wrote beautifully. And Heinlein had a clear individual voice that carries a some depth to it. I read Door into Summer a year or two ago, and it more than stacks up in quality. Now, some other Golden Age'rs I daresay I'd agree with you.

 

[Bick]

As for what I can't get into - there's not a lot that stands out as being for a peculiar ("I just can't seem to read it") reason - mostly I just struggle with badly written books. Almost all self-published and small publisher stuff I've tried has been badly written but, by definition, that doesn't meet the brief of the thread. I like Banks and Weber actually. I suppose I would have to point to two large well known series, where I've enjoyed them to start with, but officially gave up when they became a bit rubbish: Reynolds Revelation Space finale has put me off him, and GRRM's saga, which is never going to end and which he ruined in book 3, has put me off GRRM.

As to non-genre, I've never hidden my contempt and disgust for Virginia Woolf - unmitigated naval-gazing claptrap.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

GRRM's saga, which is never going to end and which he ruined in book 3, has put me off GRRM.

Well, it may end, but probably not in our lifetimes. I prefer reading the books before the TV series so I'm way less interested in the final volumes now. I'm curious though, where did he go wrong in book 3? As it's 500 years since his last book in the series was published I can't recall what happened.

 

[Bick]

I'm curious though, where did he go wrong in book 3? As it's 500 years since his last book in the series was published I can't recall what happened.

Well... {spoilery stuff}he killed off far too many engaging characters whilst simultaneously slowing the whole thing down to a point where it became a never-ending saga as opposed to a story with a recognisable arc and a possible end. From what I've heard it then goes further downhill with books 4 and 5 being turgid tomes with little or no plot progression.{/spoilery stuff}

 

[MWagner]

Lots.

Steven Erikson. Great concepts. Awful prose and dialog. Comes across as extraordinarily elaborate RPG fan-fiction.

Joe Abercrombie. Wanted to like his books. Really did. But the characters are cigar-chomping, smart-ass action movie cliches. The books read like Tarantino scripts.

J.K. Rowling. I get the appeal of the fantastical school for wizards. But reading Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone out loud to my kids was torture. So clunky. To say the prose doesn't exactly roll off the tongue is an abyssal understatement. I've read TV setup manuals that were more pleasing to the ear.