Fabulous ideas! Characters seem okay. But in several months of hauling it around to waiting rooms even, I have not been able to force my way through the book.

I finally gave it to my husband and asked him to read it. He didn't make it as far as I have (page 133 almost halfway) and he's Mr. Average SF reader. A mathematician, prime sf fan, but this book stopped him.

He says that the characters seem like they should interest him but that they don't. Pretty much what I felt.

So, it's not just me. What's wrong with this book?

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited June 10, 2007).]
 

I just finished reading FORENSIC DETECTIVE by Robert Mann and Miryam Ehrlich Williamson, and I did not get nearly as much out of it as other books of its type that I've read (DEATH'S ACRE by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson, TEASING SECRETS FROM THE DEAD by Emily Craig, DEAD MEN DO TALE TELLS by William R Maples and Michael C Browning, THE WISDOM OF THE BONES by Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, and CORPSE by Jessica Snyder Sachs).

All of these are books about people who work with skeletons/dead bodies and what they can learn from them, but while FORENSIC DETECTIVE was about that, it didn't really tell how the scientist learned what he learned from the bones. I think it was poor writing as much as anything, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has read and appreciated the other books I listed above.

(I realize that you are talking about fiction, arriki, and I'm talking about nonfiction, but I think the same principles can apply when it comes to making a story enjoyable.)
 

What could have been a good plot was ruined by merciless clichés, as well as frequently revisited scenes and often repeated descriptions. I forced myself to finish the book by skipping through the obvious and predictable dialogue.

Thereafter, I made a note to myself to avoid these authors in the future, and to limit every book to a 100 page value test.

 

This applies to non-fiction more than fiction, but it sometimes happens with novels, too---with fiction, you've got some licence to make things up, but there are limits.
 

I know these were big sellers at one point, but the main character was so loathsome and weak that I had no interest in reading any further.

I can read about loathsome and weak characters if they are interesting but Donaldson failed for me on every level with his worthless protagonist. Page 68 is where he rapes the girl that helped him btw.

Blech!

 

I liked Wizard's First Rule, it's the subsequent books that I started having a problem with.

And, as for the actual Wizard's First Rule, If you have EVER dealt with any kind of "customer service" (on either side of the counter) you know that this is a general truth. Not everybody is stupid, but we all are sometimes; ergo : People are stupid. It made me laugh my @$$ off, when I first read it. And the characterization between Zed and the One-legged chick is priceless.

BTW - Wizard's second rule (and this also widely applies) is: People want to be tricked.
 

If anything people would be more likely to be bigoted against Rahl. Why was Achilles Jr. hidden away?

[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited July 04, 2007).]
 

I'm thirty pages into the story and bored out of my mind.

It's not that there isn't a question raised on the first page. They were looking for something. Then they found it. A boot with a foot still inside. That told them that the missing ship, the village's only ship. their only source of much needed food, had sunk in the storm.

So, then comes a lot of internalizations and reviews of the situation as the pov tells her sister with two kids and another on the way that most of the men in the village are dead including her husband. Then they all have to pack up and move to the big city and subsist on charity and eventually on begging.

POV discovers a way to go offworld as some sort of indentured servant. That means the sister's family will have some monetary help.

That's as far as I've got and I'm too tired of the story to care to read on.

Why? Why did this come across as boring?
Is it a matter of the writing itself being kind of bland?
The events chronicled so far are dreary and depressing and bland?
The characters have no quirks or anything that appeals to me?

It isn't like the books I do read and enjoy don't have descriptions of events equally as dreary. They still manage to be interesting.

I just can't pinpoint what is different here.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited July 13, 2007).]
 

But...by halfway through the novel there have been only two or three mentions of that plotline. Instead there are pages and pages focused on the romance plotline. Not even a romance story with some new insight. A little bit of -- is she going to be raped..now? A lot of the female pov internalized reviewing everything around her and analyzing her situation ad nauseum. And more of the same from the male pov. We haven’t gotten to any of the bits where she thinks he couldn’t really love HER! Could he? And vice versa. I’m sure it’s somewhere ahead.

When I buy SF I’m looking for an adventure storyline predominant, not a romance. I feel cheated by the way the blurb was worded to emphasize the adventure and omit all mention of the romance.

Well, it’s just my opinion.

Yes, and it's a big reason why I'm hesitant to buy sf novels written by women. Not that I won't. There are a number of female authors I recognize and whose books I will purchase, but new writers with feminine names -- I'm real leery of those.

And then there are so FEW new sf novels published.

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited July 14, 2007).]

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited July 14, 2007).]

[This message has been edited by arriki (edited July 14, 2007).]
 

The hard sf is still out there, probably more of it than in the Golden Age, but now burried in a mass of fluf.

If I get tired of the modern stuff, I go back and reread Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Leiber, Sturgeon, and Van Vogt.

I always felt like the people who truly enjoyed that series must be the core of the group that insists that the Wheel of Time is better in every way than the Lord of the Rings. I also suspect that these people love McDonald's hamburgers, but would turn up their nose at a medium-rare porterhouse steak.
 

[This message has been edited by ValleyPastor (edited August 02, 2007).]
 

1- Stranger in a Strange Land was more plausible. Harrad is a "literary" version of Heinlein's masterpiece, only in order to get characters to behave in "new and different" (though not necessarily "better") ways, Rimmer chose not to impose "new and different" circumstances, but to fulfill what was ten a juvenile wish and then let the major character's be as absolutely unrealistic as possible. All for, what- a degree as a glorified sex ed major? These kids don't seem to be learning much else.

2- The "diary entry" format is horrible. Every character sounds exactly the same, and they don't develop The POV bounces around as the author sees fit, almost comically. The lack of intimacy with the diary itself ruins the characterization.

3- There's plenty of casual sexuality, but no true emotional closeness. The difficulty of polyamorous relationships, the butting of three or more heads in relationships, be they sexual or not, is glossed over. Lazy. (See the preface of Speaker for the Dead)

4- Rather than instituted a new morality, the book frequently dismisses the topic when inconvenient. Religion is, by and large, insulted throughout the book without ever being given a fighting chance. Characters are either indoctrinated or are labeled as boring, lacking in unity (despite the lack of evidence of such a thing at Harrad), and anyone who disagrees with the Tenhausens's view of the world is a slave to the dogmatic mores of an illogical and insane society.

Evidence of such a thing. Clunker of a noun. Just think, the Germans have a word for it. But I digress.

5- No, Rob, I'm not going to read the books you "casually" mention.

[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited August 03, 2007).]
 

Despite being hugely popular and not half bad fantasy, I for one found it incredibly hard to slug through even the first three books of the series. I found the characters to be annoying and god-like (meaning they got out of every situation and I felt like they were never really in danger of dying or being hurt other than psychologically) which really took the fun out of it for me. It took me years just to get through each book and ended it on the third, calling it quits for the whole thing.

It also didnt help that even my friends that loved the series and have read all, what...11 books and counting now?... The thing that bothered me most was that they liked most of the books but one thing stuck out...they started mentioning that like from the 6th book on they were really slow and not so good, and I've heard that it's pretty much been like that since the newest book has come out.

So maybe someone here can explain to me the reason why these books are so popular? It seems like if you're gonna get into a massive epic like this you would wanna be engaged through the entire thing.
 

Okay, I'm probably going to get burned for saying this, but I actually had a hard time enjoying Martin's Fire and Ice series. While I wouldn't say it was impossible, I had a hard time getting through it. Why? Martin tried to tell everyone's story, and as a result, I lost track of the larger story. I love the characters, i love the setting, but I couldn't keep track of everyone, and just when I was forming a comfortable rapport with, say, Tyrion, we move on to another character and I felt I had to start all over again. I found myself skipping ahead to read just the Tyrion parts. It's frustrating, too, when some of the chapters focus on characters I really could care less about.

Another book with the flaw over-complication is Jaqueline Carey's Kushiel series. Besides being a bit over-written and self-admiring, it just had too many characters to keep straight.

I also think of Battlestar Galactica--sorry, it's a T.V. show, I know, but I think it's relevant to writing. Because I love the premise, I love the story, but I just can't get into watching each show--there are too many side plots and details the characters get into that don't have a bearing on the larger story, they're just cheap ways to create suspense that doesn't work.

So, what spoils good stories for me is lack of a tight narrative structure, gimmicky or manipulative writing, and flat characters. No matter how good the story, if the characters don't work, it's difficult to read.

 

In the case of GRRM I have to convince myself that this series is really just historical fiction.

If you try to read it like "fantasy" you're apt to be in a for a shock especially about halfway through book 3. In fact I still can't to this day, finish book three after the close of one particular POV chapter.

I simply stopped reading and waited for book 4.

As to your reading style, you're not alone OSC reads one character all the way through before reading others.

[This message has been edited by Matt Lust (edited August 04, 2007).]
 

Just curious but which POV chapter turned you off the GRRM books?

As to the WOT books by Jordan...I look at them as a bad marriage.

You read the first book and it's pretty good.
Books 2 and 3 are in line and still enjoyable.
Book 4 is the wakeup call that the honeymoon is over.
Book 5 & 6 is when you realize marriage takes work and you've invested enough time into the relationship to warrant a little work.
After book 7 and 8 you start looking outside the marriage, a little Tolkein, maybe some Martin and you hope Jordan doesn't find out.
Books 9 and 10 are him getting back at you for cheating, but you put up with it because you've become dependent.
Oddly enough book 11 he patched things up and you realized why you got into this relationship to begin with.
 

To reveal why I can't finish book three and by extension re-read the first two books would be to spoil the story for those who ahve not read but it should be suffice that it was in Rob's POV and what GRRM does that causes me to have a problem with the story.

My brother for the first time this summer read the first three books of Fire and Ice (though he really felt overwhelmed by POV storylines that he didn't enjoy such as Arraya and Sansa) and without my saying anthing to him like me, he quit reading book 3 after the same POV chapter ended and said "I'm done, I was only reading to see the storyline develop and then the only character I sort of kinda actually like......."

I'm a guy that likes everything I read to stand or fall, or at least be understandable, on what's in front of me at the moment. I refrained from buying the rest of Harry Potter until after Book Seven was out---I got earlier volumes as a gift, and I have yet to read past Book One. I also picked up and read the Alvin Maker series---which, enjoyable though they were, I felt cheated because there seems to be more beyond that Book Seven, that I can't read yet.

I've somehow hoped that, in my projected career as a successful writer (yeah, right, he added sarcastically), I'll avoid writing multivolume series involving the same characters, or, if somehow trapped into it, will be able to make each book stand on its own.
 

This is not necessarily a bad thing but the only way a recurring character is enjoyable is if either a)the character has an arc or b) the character does basically the same thing every book .

Since every book you want to write has to stand on its own then you must leave the arcs small.

While A/B are not mutually exclusive, they are rarely ever mutually inclusive. Bova's grand tour series (a different book about something going on at every planet) is a great example of this. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter Saturn and Titan are all examples of books that completely stand on their own but are all also tied into his larger universe.
 

Say the typical reader picks up Volume One of this new series. He likes it...but some things aren't resolved, and are put off till Volume Two, and Volume Two won't be out for another year at least. He waits, picks up Volume Two when it comes out...learning that, though some things are worked through, other things still wait on Volume Three.

Say he makes it all the way to Volume Seven. (Might as well keep the Harry Potter similarities.) But suppose he doesn't? Suppose he becomes dissatisfied somewhere in the middle, and stops buying? Suppose that outside events, say, his sudden death, drive him away from the book series altogether?

Suppose something happens to you, the writer, like sudden death? Could you go to your grave happy, knowing you left so much hanging in your series and the loyal readers might never know what would have happened next?

Is it fair to let an enthusiastic fan never learn what'll happen? Are you writing a book, or marketing a sucker deal with the reader getting stuck?
 

Matt: re GRRM- I'm still mystified. in book three (storm of swords, right?) we aren't in Rob's pov... I'm assuming you mean Caetlyn, the next closest.
 

quote:

---

My brother for the first time this summer read the first three books of Fire and Ice (though he really felt overwhelmed by POV storylines that he didn't enjoy such as Arraya and Sansa) and without my saying anthing to him like me, he quit reading book 3 after the same POV chapter ended and said "I'm done, I was only reading to see the storyline develop and then the only character I sort of kinda actually like......."

---

So GRR Martin is repeating himself? He did this in book one of the series, and while I did keep reading that book, I couldn't bring myself to pick up book two.
 

Like I said, I have to read the series like Historical fiction because I know GRRM is not going to let this story get away with any of the standard plot cliches of fantasy writing.

I don't feel he's repeating himself in anything after book 1 and especially not in Book 3/4 as the POV characters are now so geographically scattered as to keep GRRM from repeating himself.

Arraya and Sansa were always rather bad POV's in the first book for this reason in my opinion though I think he did a wonderful job building them into separate characters in the following books.

Matt, does the fact that it reads more like historical fiction vs. fantasy make it more enjoyable to you, less, or just different?

The reason I'm asking is that some people seek out the fantasy cliches you said he avoids, so I'm curious what your take is on this.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited August 10, 2007).]
 

that's a really good question.

I don't mind a good light fantasy read but that being said, I am trying to get through Acacia (via audiobook) a new fantasy novel by David Anthony Durham. Quite frankly I should really like this book because its actually well written in terms of style and tone but the story's structure and plotting is like a patchwork quilt and not like ones my mother does more like the ones I tried to make when I was a 8 year old.

Its got at least 7 if not eight POV characters that he does a decent enough job weaving but the universal/world spanning empire that has a dirty dark secret and a helpless but well meaning king who can't do anything about the deep dark secret and also a long long ago enemy who is making plans of their own.

Top this off with the fact that this world spanning DOES NOT have any significant military force of their own and is is in fact beholden to a "league" of merchants that controls all the trade in the "known" world.

Top this off with an impending invasion by a long forgotten people group who they bought off with the big dark secret.

I could go own but really thats as far as I've gotten in the book.

GRRM on the other hand while he writes alot of characters, the story structure is much more stark and as well as very deep yet concise characterization (He may have too many characters but thats a different issue) with what strikes me as a well plotted character and event arc that I personally cannot wait to see how it ends.

It was however that one particular scene when I decided that too enjoy Fire and Ice, I had to throw out my understanding of what kind of fantasy I thought Fire and Ice in order to still enjoy all the other characters as well as discover what GRRM has planned for westeros.

Acacia appears similar to song of ice and fire but to me what makes the latter a classic work of fantastic fiction and the former a hack job, is the voice of the author in the work.

To me it feels that GRRM is telling a recounting historical events while Durham is attempting to tell us an honest to goodness original work that too me smacks of cliche and at times outright borrowing (though not plagarism) from other writers.

Cliches (or universal themes to be more polite) are fine but it is the voice of the author that makes them special or makes them as pleasant as curdled milk.

 

I also think that his books benefit from discussion, he drops very subtle hints regarding underlying plot threads that are very easy to miss if you are used to authors being very straight forward. Many authors, myself included, fall victim to explaining things to show how clever they are. GRRM doesn't seem to care if you missed his clues, he is fine if you don't realize how clever he is :-)

Jon Snow's parentage is presented very forthrightly but there are several inconsistencies and his parentage has significatn bearing later in the book, though it's never shoved in your face.

Sorry don't want to turn this into a GRRM thread...but I wish Jordan wrote with a fraction of GRRM's depth.

 

It's crazy but I think he is a targaryen (sp) via Eddard Stark's sister Lyanna and Rheagar.

but that's off topic.

I also read somewhere that Lester Del Rey, he of Del Rey books fame, started writing a fantasy book series once he retired from the firm, but only finished one volume before his death. As far as I know, it was never published---and it's something I'd like to see, open-ended or not.
 

I beleive GRRM originally had it planned as 3 books, then realized it would take 5.
 

My first magazine exposure was to Analog, in the early seventies, just after Ben Bova took over from the late John W. Campbell. (It was probably more than a year before I realized there were other magazines.)

I liked some of the "hard stuff," but I think of the regularly-appearing writers, the ones that appealed to me the most were George Railroad Martin and Spider Robinson. I wouldn't consider their stories the hardest of the hard SF by any means.

I saw an interview somewhere recently with Martin---I forget where. He talked of publishing in those days, and said he wasn't exactly a great fit with the "hard science" school of SF writing.

I've tried to keep that in mind. My writing isn't "hard" in that sense. I try to get the science right, but I don't calculate out orbits or figure the biochemistry of my aliens. I might be willing to do so if the idea appealed to me, but I generally avoid that sort of thing. I can't do what, say, Hal Clement could do with a dazzling scientific idea. I'm more likely to drop some piece of technology into the mix, an idea rather than a rigorously-worked-out speculation, that might "look" like something that comes out twenty years later.
 

So, let me add weak characterization, or perhaps ill thought out, unoriginal characterization, to the list of things that ruins a good story.

Oh, and I started a GRRM thread to continue the above conversation, as need be.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited August 13, 2007).]
 

I thought, "Geez," and wondered why somebody would mix horse racing and pool. I guess some of these guys really do just talk to hear the sound of their own voices...