Writers That You Started Out liking and you End Up Hating.

[Vertigo]

David Weber has pretty much lost me now. Does that man ever need an editor!! I suspect he considers himself such a big bestseller now that he bans editors from touching his work.

I loved Mike Shepherds Longknife books to start with but they became so repetitive and so implausible. I have much the same problem with Lois McMaster Bujold, Jack Campbell and Tanya Huff. To be fair I'm not sure how much of this is down to changes in my tastes. They all tend to write quite light action books and I find myself looking for books with a bit more meat to them now.

 

[BAYLOR]

Phillip Pullman . I like his trilogy until the third book. How he ended it turned me off to him completely.

 

[logan_run]

Issac ASSIMOV I LIKE i ROBOT NOT SO MUCH THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY.

 

[BAYLOR]

Issac ASSIMOV I LIKE i ROBOT NOT SO MUCH THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY.

The First Three Foundation novels are pretty good. I couldn't finish the 4th book.

 

[Parson]

The First Three Foundation novels are pretty good. I couldn't finish the 4th book.

A classic case of not being willing to leave well enough alone.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Hating is a strong emotion and I wouldn't go as far as saying I hate any author. I still respect them as authors and for their work even though I may have come to dislike their works.

Stephen King for me was without doubt my favourite author, my bookshelf pays testament to this. I thought his works were simply amazing, Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Talisman, the very early Dark Tower novels, The Bachman Books etc etc. I fell out of love with him from around the period when he wrote The Tommyknockers but still continued to read him in hope. I haven't read much if anything by him in the last 10 years. Strangely my enjoyment of his novels diminished around the time he went straight.

Clive Barker's recent works I've found to be dire. Some of his earlier novels are in my favourites list such as Cabal, The Damnation Game and The Hellhound Heart. Anything he's written since 2000 I haven't enjoyed.

GRRM for me has seriously gone off the boil. A Feast for Crows lost the plot and he's never managed to regain it in my eyes which is a shame because the previous novels were some of the best I've read.

 

[svalbard]

It was David Eddings for me. I adored the Belgariad and the first book of the Mallorean. Even though I did finish the series it has lost its allure long before the end. It all became a bit samey and juvenile.

Hate though is too strong a word and emotion. Dislike would be how I felt about the later Edding's books.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Frank Miller's Daredevil: Born Again is a superb story, and his Dark Knight Returns is incredibly iconic. After enjoying both I bought his four-part comic Hard Boiled - what was then his latest work. And it was just stupid hyper masculine violence. Unfortunately, this seems to have become Frank Miller's sole interest since. As pretty much evidenced by 300, which is missing all the human development and clever plotting that made him famous in the 80's.

 

[EJDeBrun]

Naomi Novak. I loved Uprooted, but gee golly Temeraire started strong and just kept going and going and going all the while getting weaker and weaker...

 

[BAYLOR]

It was David Eddings for me. I adored the Belgariad and the first book of the Mallorean. Even though I did finish the series it has lost its allure long before the end. It all became a bit samey and juvenile.

Hate though is too strong a word and emotion. Dislike would be how I felt about the later Edding's books.

I Thought the Belgariad to be a terrific series. The Mallorean, lacked a strong villain and a good overall story. Ive liked nothing else the that I've read by him since.

 

[Shorewalker]

Whilst I reserve 'hate' for only one author, there are a number who I can no longer stomach reading...

David Eddings - childish & repetitive
Raymond E. Feist - milking it for all he's worth
Terry Brooks - see Feist
Robert Jordan - bloated, repetitive and I'm certain he had no clue who 'died in the end'
Terry Goodkind - the only one worthy of my hate. His writing degenerated at the same time he began preaching his words of wisdom to his flock. Truly odious.

 

[vanye]

Yes, I certainly agree on Goodkind. Liked the books at first, but odious perfectly describes the later books that deteriorate into sermons.

David Weber is starting to get there for me.

 

[BAYLOR]

A classic case of not being willing to leave well enough alone.

I agree.

 

[Toby Frost]

I still remember my 10-year-old's sense of betrayal when Asimov and Clarke realised that they could write about relationships - ie sex. I think the quality of the books dropped off around then. Certainly Clarke put out some ropey "jointly-authored" stuff in the 80s. Ever since, I've been highly suspicious of the need some authors seem to have to crowbar all their novels into a single continuity.

 

[BigBadBob141]

I used to enjoy the Dirk Pitt books of Clive Cussler.
Such as "Vixen 03", "Night Probe" & "Cyclops".
These were fairly solid not too deep thrillers.
They even made a film out of "Sahara".
But towards the end they got a wee bit too silly.

 

[BAYLOR]

I used to enjoy the Dirk Pitt books of Clive Cussler.
Such as "Vixen 03", "Night Probe" & "Cyclops".
These were fairly solid not too deep thrillers.
They even made a film out of "Sahara".
But towards the end they got a wee bit too silly.

He sold alot of books .

 

[Bick]

The First Three Foundation novels are pretty good. I couldn't finish the 4th book.

Foundation's Edge is the best book in the series. Prelude to Foundation is also better in its prose, structure and pacing than the original trilogy. The original trilogy is a classic work, and deserves plaudits for its importance to the genre, but Asimov absolutely improved the overall sweep of psychohistory and its narrative arc by adding books toward the end of his life.

 

[The Big Peat]

Since I first visited this thread I've found that Aliette de Bodard's tastes and mine have diverged significantly

And that digging deep into Vorkosigan doesn't improve my opinion of Lois McMaster Bujold, and that she actually somewhat appalled me with the latest Penric and Desdemona book I read.

It didn't take long for Max Gladstone to go from "oh my god, this is amazing" to "I feel frustrated, why can't you feel this magical again". Ditto Miles Cameron in lesser form.

Also with regard to my earlier selections...

Pretty much every author I started out with is one who I'd apply this to - Feist, Eddings, Kerr, Lackey, Rankin, Jordan, even Gemmell... I feel like to a certain extent, getting bored with an author's favourite things is just life. Most fantasy authors don't mix it up enough. Pratchett is the only guy I enjoyed all the way to the end (barring illneses of the brain).

Applies sometimes outside fantasy too. Not that fond of Lindsey Davies' later Falcos. Starting to get a bit tired of Cornwell's schtick too.

Le Carre is arguably my standout here. I prefer him writing about hardened Col War veterans to him writing about modern ingenues.

Jacqueline Carey's third Terre d'Ange series qualifies her for this. Jim Butcher's latest book has left me a bit worried.

They say that politics and sports careers end in failure. I'm beginning to feel the same way about authors.

I would like to repent of mixing some of these up.

Because while Robert Jordan had ups and downs, and Pratchett's interests were diverging from mine even before the embuggerance...

... and I no longer have an interest in Kerr's works, and I think that Feist gets far too invested in fan service and improbably perfect characters with not enough attention paid to story...

... no authors deserve comparison with Eddings' last series or most of Lackey's more recent Valdemars.

 

[Astro Pen]

James Blish I have lost a bit of enthusiasm for, along with Edmund Cooper and Van Vogt.
Asimov I also feel has dated in ways. His Characters and social interactions feel a 'bit 1950s' klunky now

On the other hand Ben Bova and Greg Bear have weathered better for me.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Terry Brooks. The Elfstones of Shannara, I thought, was a great book. I tried reading some of his other books in the series and just couldn't get into it.