fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3833 ]

[ SECRET POST #3833 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3833 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 35 secrets from Secret Submission Post #549.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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What's your favorite multi-book series?
What multi-book series have you tried to get into, but failed?

Discworld. It is the best, par excellence; despite a few nerds doing their best to try and cast dirt on Pratchett's works to gain some beardy rebel points.

Works I wanted to get into, but couldn't. John Scalzi's Old Man's War books. There is just something about his writing style that I can't get.

Then there are Chuck Wendig's Star Wars books, which are just so bad I'd rather read Chuck Tingle's Pounded in the Butt by a Snub Fighter and a Smuggler.

Discworld. <3

Yeah, I hear you re: Scalzi's work. I find his blogging entertaining, but his writing style is very... I dunno. It's quite plain, with very little description and IIRC rather dialogue heavy. Not that this is bad, per se, but it's not my cup of tea. I like richer world building and lots of details. My other issue is that a lot of his characters sound alike - they speak with the same sarcastic jokey style... which I actually LIKE and find funny, but there's not much variation between characters' personalities.

For sheer repeat readability, Harry Potter. I did really love Katharine Kerr's Deverry series when I was in my late teens, and also The Riftwar Cycle by Raymond E. Feist and the Elenium by David Eddings. Mind you, this was back when I had the attention span to devote a lot of time to reading door-stopper-sized books.

I preferred Harry Potter when it was called Malory Towers.

Favorites:

* The Phryne Fisher series - different from the TV show, but still pretty good. Order isn't that important, and they're light, fun reads.

* Amelia Peabody series - mystery in the Victorian era, lots of Egyptology. The later books get a little bogged down in drama and too many characters, but the early ones are also fun reads. Ditto her Vicky Bliss series, which is much shorter.

* Gentlemen Bastard series, by Scott Lynch - Entertaining fantasy with rich world building. I hear he's struggling with mental health issues to finish the recent one and I wish him the best of luck because it's a great series.

Couldn't get into:

* Stephen King Dark Tower series - don't know why, but it just doesn't appeal to me. Generally I find that the longer a SK work is, the worse it tends to be. I don't want to get bogged down in a series that never ends.

I liked the Dark Tower series, but it took me a couple of years to finish it because so many parts of it were boring and hard to get into. It would've been way more readable had it been cut in half.

Favourites: Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence and Karin Lowachee's Warchild series.
Couldn't get into: A Song of Ice and Fire and Richard K. Morgan's A Land Fit For Heroes. I gave up on Harry Potter after book 4 as well.

Someone else who's read Warchild! I'm disappointed she hasn't written anything lately... she has such a good way with perspectives.

Re: Inspired by #1

fishnchips - 2017-07-02 23:37 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #1

bur - 2017-07-02 23:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #1

fishnchips - 2017-07-03 00:25 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #1

fishnchips - 2017-07-04 06:28 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #1

bur - 2017-07-04 11:41 (UTC) - Expand

I love Tolkien and Narnia, and I still have a soft spot for Pern books.

I tried The Death Gate Cycle and Dresden. I liked the first but I couldn't get into the second book because I didn't see the characters I had just invested in. I'll probably try Dresden again. I also tried the Sword of Truth series but stopped when the main guy was enslaved to a lady.

Drop the Sword of Truth series, drop it, it's godawful, each book just keeps getting worse and worse and the author gets more and more Ayn-Rand-style preachy over time. It's like, you've invested in these characters and then you start to hate them and feel as though you've just wasted so much of your life. I want my hours back, dammit.

Re: Inspired by #1

(Anonymous) - 2017-07-03 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

I got so much secondhand embarrassment from the whole torture porn thing. It felt like somehow Goodkind's personal wank material had accidentally been included in the compile.

Wow, I have so many now that I think about it. In the order they pop into my mind:

Discworld (also by Pratchett - the Johnny booka and the Bromeliad), Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and related books, Earthsea, A Song of Fire and Ice, Prydain Chronicles, Bartimaeus books, Vorkosigan Saga... Probably more but I'll stop here.

For those that I couldn't get into:

Farseer books sounded interesting but I couldn't care for any characters. Also the Long Earth series - I loved the first two, but I got stalled in the middle of the Long Mars and I don't feel like picking it back up.

1. The Wheel of Time! aaaah

2. I guess you could say ASOIAF. I might finish it one day...maybe. It's not bad, just, idk I sort of fell off it.

My favorite long series may be the Vorkosigan saga, but it really is difficult for me to choose just one.

I'm currently trying to get into the Wheel of Time, but the first book is so. Damn. Boring.

I'd forgotten about the Vorkosigan saga! I guess because they work pretty well as stand alone novels, so they don't feel like a series to me.

Bad news: the later books in Wheel of Time are also super boring. I have no idea how people get through this yawnfest of a series.

Re: Inspired by #1

ketita - 2017-07-02 23:23 (UTC) - Expand

I wouldn't say that Wheel of Time is all boring but it does have really significant pacing issues through basically the entire series. So if that's a major problem for you then yeah it might not be great.

You're right in saying that Eye of the World is pretty boring. The next one (The Great Hunt) improves a lot. Most of the rest of the series holds to that - 3 through 6 are actually all really good and most of the others are at least decent. The two books that are a real problem are 8 (Path of Daggers) and 10 (Crossroads of Twilight) which are both much worse than Eye of the World. Like, they're really, really awful.

Re: Inspired by #1

ketita - 2017-07-03 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

C.J Cherryh's 'Foreigner' series (eighteen books and counting). I friggin' love it.
The Laura Ingalls Wilder series.

Could *not* get into the 'Game of Thrones' series at all, holy crap, two books in and i was just *done*.

You got one past me! I read book 1 and figured that I probably didn't hvae anything to look for in the later ones. Nothing I've heard since then has made me rethink that stance...

Re: Inspired by #1

tabaqui - 2017-07-03 00:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Inspired by #1

ketita - 2017-07-03 00:05 (UTC) - Expand

Faves: I LOVE Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series. LOOOOOOOVE. Lovelovelovelovelove. Followed by The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. And the only thing that I seem to pre-order anymore is the next book of Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Co., so I guess that fits here too.

Tried but can't!: Game of Thrones. I should like it, but I just don't. Ah well.

I loved the Jeeves and Bertie books even before I decided I wanted to lick butterscotch off of Hugh Laurie.

Favourites people have already mentioned: DISCWORLD, Narnia, Vorkosigan, the Bartimaeus books, The Edge Chronicles.

Favourites people haven't mentioned: Honor Harrington, Janny Wurts' Wars of Light and Shadow. I'm not sure Sherlock Holmes counts since it's mostly short stories?

Things I loved for ages but eventually let slide: The Dresden Files (got too apocalyptic and depressing), The Wheel of Time (stuck it out until Path of Daggers but eventually it was just too much effort), the Shannara series (I love the original trilogy and the Heritage series, as well as the Knight of the Word trilogy before it got stitched in, but eventually the slew of series got too much), the Gormenghast trilogy (I pretend its a duology and call it good)

I've also read significant chunks of about a gazillion crime series, but I don't tend to count that since they're mostly popcorn books to me.

Things I tried to get into but couldn't: Sword of Truth (I won't even claim ideological objections, I just never got beyond the first few chapters of the first book), the Dark Tower (me and Stephen King never got on). I also kept meaning to try Tad Williams' stuff, I just never actually manage it.

Re: Inspired by #1

(Anonymous) - 2017-07-03 02:55 (UTC) - Expand

Oh man, I have so many "favorites." In no particular order:

Kitty the Werewolf by Carrie Vaughn. Love love love how this ended.

Dresden Files. Just keeps escalating and it's so much fun.

Cal Leandros by Rob Thurman. If we don't get the last book in the series I'm going to be very put out.

Miles Vorkosigan. Yes, please.

The Monster Hunter International and the Grimnoir books by Larry Correia.

Discworld goes without saying.

Jane Yellowrock by Faith Hunter.

Those are just off the top of my head.

The one I've tried and couldn't get through was The Lord of the Rings. I'm sorry, when 150 pages go by and absolutely nothing actually happens except a bunch of hobbits faffing around in the Shire, I don't have time for that. Loved the movies, loved the Hobbit, could not get through Fellowship. Tried twice.

I really liked The Giver Quartet. I own it and reread it almost every year. I tried to get into Harry Potter, but it just didn't jive with me.

1. Favorite: Toss up between Diskworld and Vorkosigan, although the relatively new Wayfarers (Becky Chambers) and Wayward Children (Seannan McGuire) are coming in close behind.

2. Failed: A lot of multi-volume high fantasy these days.

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