You are a brave, brave person . I loved Lord of the Rings . . . except for the constant descriptions. I used to enjoy watching the movies (I'd fast-forward most of the Frodo parts, since they were sooo slow moving) until I read the books. Now both the books and the movies move too slowly for me to reread or rewatch. My mom joked that we should make a Reader's Digest version of the books so I could read them again, and I'm sorely tempted to do so for my own collection.
I didn't find Lord of the Rings boring, but then I read a lot of classics, which are often slow in pace.
^ - This. I absolutely love Dickens and have a better appreciation for his works now that I'm much older. Some of his characters are so vibrant and complex! Personally, for me - John Grisham books tend to be a bit overrated. He can tell a good story for sure; but sometimes his writing style is uber-cheesy to the point that I find myself facepalming.
50 shades of Grey The owner of a local used book store told me that he would charge anyone who wants to but those book three times the price for the simple fact that it was such bad writing that anyone willing to read it should have to waste more money on it. He didn't care about the so called smut at all( he told me of much better books for that).
That's awesome, and a good business strategy. I wonder if he ever got any takers on those awful books.
I have to agree. I tried - really tried - to read this to find out what all the fuss was about. But I couldn't get past 10%, and not because I wasn't the target audience, it was too poorly written for me to persevere.
I was one of the few people on my planet who liked Charles Dickens BEFORE I read him in school. David Copperfield was, and still is, my favourite of his novels, and Steerforth is a masterfully-created character. But I agree with you about A Christmas Carol. Who on earth could dislike that? I still read it for pleasure, every year, around about Christmas time. There might be a few people on the forum who are old enough to remember when Jonathan Livingston Seagull was a must-read? OMG.
I think that an important part of answering this question is for us to consider the difference between it being your kind of thing and it being the kind of thing you can call bad. Harry Potter, for example, has too much simplicity and silliness distracting from the good ideas and characters in my opinion, but it does a good job of being that, a juvenile fantasy. While as as a very teen book I found at my school library, Viridian, was pure corny pandering bullshit that I don't think anyone should appreciate. That Viridian book was only mildly successful though, more of an example of crap than successful crap.
Is it successful if you make it to six books before your publisher kills the series? The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb was amazingly dire, and I hear the sequels got even worse. Sexist, classist, homophobic, pointlessly gory for shock value, pointlessly sexually explicit for shock value, aggressively unsubtle in every possible way, and full of characters who serve a single narrative role and have no depth or interesting traits outside of it, I doubt anyone mourned this one when it finally shuffled off into obscurity. As for actually famous works, I'll go with the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Terry Pratchett described First Sight as the ability to look at something and see exactly what it is, setting aside all expectations or prior learning about what it should be. Hawthorne is the only famous author I've read who has no apparent First Sight whatsoever. Anything and everything he describes is filtered through the lens of whether he interprets the Bible to be for it or against it, to the point that it impairs his ability to actually say what things are like. (For instance, he can't call artificially created plants beautiful, because creating new life goes against the will of God--he has to say they're "glowing with an evil mockery of beauty.")
Twilight is an overly-soppy angsty teen glitterfest, so I'd say that's an example. I don't like the teen genre very much. It's quite pandering and emotionally stupid.
I am horrified that exists. You can't have a relationship with your rape baby. That's just disturbed. And completely unnecessary for the story unless the point is to make your protagonist freaky.
When I was in college, a friend of mine gave that as a present to another friend, and everyone ooohed and aaahed over it as it got handed around. I took a look at it and thought, "You've got to be kidding me!" I was reading Michener's The Source at the time.
The Maze Runner series and The Hunger Games series of books. In my opinion they were only written, knowing that they would be turned into a film franchise. Even bringing it out as a trilogy format for the novels, reeks of a writer thinking these books have a movie potential deal. For the fans of these books and films, don't shoot me down in flames, it's only my point of view.
Definitely 50 shades of grey. The series is so flat. The reading is akin to taking the hand of a toddler and walking them through a series of events, not that you'd ever expose a toddler to such content. I'm completely comfortable with the theme of the content, but the content is so...ugh, so un-inspiring. I found myself imagining nothing while reading it, I felt no emotive response, nor did it accomplish anything particularly meaningful through the story. Still, I can't help but admire their success. The author wrote what they wanted to write and succeeded, so although it's a poor example of literature I still feel happy for them.
I have to say 50 Shades as well. Because everyone and their mother had read it, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and I still regret it. About 200 pages in, I gave up. The writing was horrible, the plot was non-existent and the characters were bland as can be. At least I didn't waste my money on this piece of... And I'm still not over my classmates at the time saying it was "well-written", especially after seeing excerpts on the internet. Also, The Notebook. It was just flat, plain and simple. I love the movie, but the book just did not do it for me.
Yeah, and the sudden penchant for filming every new story that has series or movie potential is killing books. I think that's the biggest mistake JK Rowling made, as an author—although she certainly made a lot of money on the franchises. But by allowing her books to be filmed so soon after she wrote them, she's basically killed them as books. How many future children will bother to read her Harry Potter series? I reckon most of them will just watch the movies. And look what's happening to poor old stalled writer George RR Martin. The Game of Thrones series has now lapped his books and the TV writers are apparently doing all sorts of things George hadn't planned to do, including killing off characters he'd planned to keep alive. (Amazing. He actually planned to keep somebody alive? Who knew?) Who is going to bother reading his subsequent books? Not many, I reckon. I think you're quite right to reject books that look as if they're shamelessly pointed at the film industry, and not at encouraging people to read.
You're definitely right, the length of time in between the book being released and then the film being released, is preposterous. They don't leave enough time for a fan base to materialise. Surely you would want legions of fans of the book, to petition the film industry to make the novel into a movie. Not even a decade goes by now, between a book being printed and the film being in development. I don't think there is that amount of legitimate fans, imploring 'Hollywood' to produce the books they like to read. What's taking another step further to ruin the viewers experience, is making TV programmes out of a film or film franchise. They really have run out of ideas and now they're into recycling everything, over and over again. (Rant over)
Yeah, he said he always knew the TV series would go on ahead of him but he told them what would happen to every character and they are to finish the TV series with an ending matching the future books. The "how" they get there is up to the writers.
Well, according to what I read the other day (I think it was SFX magazine's Facebook post) apparently they're killing off people he intended to keep alive, and had 'plans' for. I don't think he's very pleased, but what can he do about it? No it wasn't SFX ...it was this article here: http://www.cinemablend.com/television/George-R-R-Martin-Says-Game-Thrones-Kill-Off-Characters-Who-Alive-Books-70063.html
Now I actually think that's a bit dire. I'm sure plenty of future children will still read Harry Potter. I don't know if as many but that's just due to the fact the series will be long over (unless she keeps writing more spin-offs and thus keeps in the main public eye) but nonetheless. I can't imagine people not reading Harry Potter at this point. Even as we go further future, the fandom is just so big and then those people will have kids and so and so forth and the books are just so famous now they will always be around. Game of Thrones is a bit of a different case imo. The first book came out in the 90s and the release dates have been pretty all over the place for each book. But still was semi popular and growing, is that correct? Now with the TV show, I don't think its bad it went in a different direction. I mean its annoying and I'd be annoyed (If I was the author) but I've heard that when shows are different or super popular it gives people incentive to read the book. I wouldn't be surprised if a Song of Ice and Fire book sales boosted as the show attracted more of an audience and more people learned it was books first. Not to say I'm right of course but that's one way of looking at it. Course I agree that everyone should read the book first and you shouldn't write so your books become movies but when the movies can get people to read more, I'm alright with that side of it . I mean I may eat my words and be to much of an optimist but I think more then any other media so far. It has been books that have been the hardest to kill it seems....despite the predictions and the birth of film and video games and internet . Hopefully it stays that way.
Well, I do hope you're right, but I have my doubts. I wonder how many young people read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings before seeing the Peter Jackson films these days?
I think Game of Thrones is saved by the fact the tv show is different. It gives people more to look forward to in the books.
You've piqued my interest. How did you figure it was all for shock value? Certainly it can't be sexist solely because the bad guys seem to be, well, bad gals? I don't mind graphic violence or sexually explicit writing 'cause I find it often pretty realistic, but I'd be interested to read examples when it's been done wrong.
