Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post

Looger · 07-25-2006, 12:13 AM

i don't know aboot other CP'ers but i have read some dreadful books over the years.

"cat who walks through walls" robert heinlein - starts out interestingly but ends up another 'lazarus long' book. hey reader, guess what, all that story buildup is useless, and yes i get the subtext, it's not clever. yawn...

ALL of the bean series, orson scott card - these books are so awful i got through the first three to see if they got better, then gave up. the ender books i thought got weaker as they went but were still readable, not like this newer series, which is total trash. card focuses on minor insignificant details from "ender's game" and expands it so much in the minds and lives of the characters that any meaning ceases to exist. this 'achilles' character having no mind-warping youth training and becoming an unstoppable general - no scratch that, all these kids being unstoppable and it being stated as bald fact with no description and no battle randomization gets to be such a ludicrous concept, that i tune the story completely out - and the story is the quality of saturday morning cartoon fare - only ONE way for anything to go, and everyone knows it. yawn. the real killer here is that the base idea for the books, the takeover of earth by kids on message boards, was intriguing in the original books. card should have left it at that.

"rogue squadron" series, michael stackpole - i'm a huge fan of stackpole's work, so this laboured and hamfisted approach to star wars left me bitter.

"bio of a space tyrant" book one, piers anthony - this book just spews out such drivelous sick stuff that it loses any meaning by the end, it's just 'oh more rape. fascinating.' anthony is one seriously deviant dude.

others?

07-25-2006, 12:13 AM	#1
Looger Lifetime Suspension Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: insider trading in WTC 7 Exp:	Bad Reads i don't know aboot other CP'ers but i have read some dreadful books over the years. "cat who walks through walls" robert heinlein - starts out interestingly but ends up another 'lazarus long' book. hey reader, guess what, all that story buildup is useless, and yes i get the subtext, it's not clever. yawn... ALL of the bean series, orson scott card - these books are so awful i got through the first three to see if they got better, then gave up. the ender books i thought got weaker as they went but were still readable, not like this newer series, which is total trash. card focuses on minor insignificant details from "ender's game" and expands it so much in the minds and lives of the characters that any meaning ceases to exist. this 'achilles' character having no mind-warping youth training and becoming an unstoppable general - no scratch that, all these kids being unstoppable and it being stated as bald fact with no description and no battle randomization gets to be such a ludicrous concept, that i tune the story completely out - and the story is the quality of saturday morning cartoon fare - only ONE way for anything to go, and everyone knows it. yawn. the real killer here is that the base idea for the books, the takeover of earth by kids on message boards, was intriguing in the original books. card should have left it at that. "rogue squadron" series, michael stackpole - i'm a huge fan of stackpole's work, so this laboured and hamfisted approach to star wars left me bitter. "bio of a space tyrant" book one, piers anthony - this book just spews out such drivelous sick stuff that it loses any meaning by the end, it's just 'oh more rape. fascinating.' anthony is one seriously deviant dude. others?