Big Named Authors That Disappointed You?

dgiharris

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I'm not sure if my expectations were too high, but I was in a bit of a funk and wanted to read outside of my normal Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre.

So I grabbed a book by Robert Ludlum, the guy who wrote The Bourne Identity.

Anyways, grabbed his book The Prometheus Deception.

Anyways, the story isn't bad. But what gets me are the 'info dumps'.

The book is full of them. So much so that I'm distracted by them.

I'm about half way through the book, will probably finish this weekend. But overall i'm kinda disappointed. The story is good but the writing isn't what I thought it'd be.

So I thought I'd ask you guys, what big named authors disappointed you?

Also, another part of me is wondering if its my fault.
Did I just set my expectations too high and there was no where to go but down?

Was this the case for you?

Why do you think you were disappointed with your Author in question?

Mel...
 

Mumut

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Recent Dick Francis read as though they've been written to a formula. Stephen King I don't like at all.
 

Lisa Cox

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Stephen King I don't like at all.

I'm partly with you on that one. Yes, he writes compelling stories. But take Misery for example -- I'd say at least a third of that book (from what I remember) is the guy thinking about escape plans. Introspection. Internal monologues. Random pages of thoughts upon thoughts. I don't know, maybe I'm not remembering it correctly. What I do remember is skimming large passages because the character's doing nothing but think.

But when the plot takes hold, he's incredible.
 

MaryMumsy

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Almost all will disappoint me eventually. Cussler, Cornwell, King, McCaffrey, LeCarre. Those are the first who come to mind. I just read the most recent Francis, and I did like it (sorry Mumut).

I think either our tastes change, or the writers starting 'phoning in' their work, or a combination of both. Life is too short, if you don't like something, move on to someone/something else.

MM
 
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The ones who disappoint me usually do so because they get lazy. Novels get shorter, research clearly not done, plot holes you can drive a bus through, all the rules we're told not to break not only broken but shattered...

The name becomes so big their head swells too which you'd think would mean they could fit more mad editing skillz in, but no...too many authors seem to 'churn 'em out' with no thought for quality.
 

brainstorm77

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I'm partly with you on that one. Yes, he writes compelling stories. But take Misery for example -- I'd say at least a third of that book (from what I remember) is the guy thinking about escape plans. Introspection. Internal monologues. Random pages of thoughts upon thoughts. I don't know, maybe I'm not remembering it correctly. What I do remember is skimming large passages because the character's doing nothing but think.

But when the plot takes hold, he's incredible.

I liked Misery.
 

eyeblink

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The ones who disappoint me usually do so because they get lazy. Novels get shorter, research clearly not done, plot holes you can drive a bus through, all the rules we're told not to break not only broken but shattered...

The name becomes so big their head swells too which you'd think would mean they could fit more mad editing skillz in, but no...too many authors seem to 'churn 'em out' with no thought for quality.

Actually I'd suggest when novelists get lazy their books usually get longer. There are natural underwriters (risk = underdevelopment) but there seem to me to be a lot more overwriters out there. It's easy to waffle, and it became even easier when the word processor took over from the typewriter.
 

Nadia

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There are too many to name, but mostly I became disappointed because their writing got stale, and their stories didn't excite me anymore.
 

MsGneiss

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Dan Brown, of course. And, I'm afraid, I can't get through anything by Dan Simmons.
 
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Actually I'd suggest when novelists get lazy their books usually get longer. There are natural underwriters (risk = underdevelopment) but there seem to me to be a lot more overwriters out there. It's easy to waffle, and it became even easier when the word processor took over from the typewriter.
Could be something in that, given I was in Waterstone's yesterday and picked up a big name's new release...it started off with a physical description of the MC. A laundry list in fact. And it headjumped, told us what observers were thinking then said "But she didn't notice." Well if she didn't notice, why have you just given us the laundry list, while sharing her thoughts? Whose head are we in here?

Bah!
 

Rowan

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Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake vampire hunter series started off so well and then it went South around Narcissus in Chains)... :(
 

Priene

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Tolstoy, Hemingway and F Scott FitzGerald spring to mind.
 

Zoombie

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Dear Heinline.

Forever War was better than Starship Troopers in every single way. Go to hell, you facist pig, signed Zoombie.
 

Darzian

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Let's see. Aside from the obvious (which would begin flame wars) :

Stephen King's The Gunslinger
Robin Hobb's Assassin's Quest
GRRM's Feast for Crows
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time - book 5 onwards
 

Perdoon

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I've had a few disappointments, the most recent being Six Sacred Stones by Matthew Reilly.

I loved his other books (normally I hate that sort of constant action type books but his are pretty enjoyable) and I loved Seven Ancient Wonders (Seven Deadly Wonders in America I believe) but Six Sacred Stones was just painful. He tried to be too epic and fit too much into single sentences to the point where I actually skipped some of the action scenes.

Plus he had a few overly stereotypical characters like the twins that finish each others' sentences (that's how they were described, I think it happened a whole once in the book and that was in the following paragraph) and a few characters seemed to gain previously unmentioned abilities at critical points. The sudden ability to speak (or at least understand) Mandarin was one of them I believe, again the twins were the culprits :tongue

Oh, and a few times characters said something, then another character would agree and state why they agreed. Only the statement they made didn't relate to what the character said in the first place

Finally, he said he was aiming for a Lord of the Rings level of epic-ness.

On the positive side, it made a nice 'thwump' sound when I threw it :tongue
 

TerzaRima

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Ian McEwen. Because my friends all had a collective orgasm over Atonement, I read it and then I tried to read Saturday. I can't tell you what the disconnect for me is--the writing is lucid and his images are startling, but there's something so airless about the worlds McEwen creates.
 

MsGneiss

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Dear Heinline.

Forever War was better than Starship Troopers in every single way. Go to hell, you facist pig, signed Zoombie.

I so agree. Pretty much every Heinlein novel I tried has been a huge disappointment for me. Nowhere near as fun and clever as Haldeman.
 

Zoombie

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Also, the Forever War remains one of the few books I've read that actually uses relativity as a driving force of the story.

I wish more people would do that, cause its a really powerful image, to have the world age faster than you...

Bah.

Another big name author that disappointed me? Is it cheating to say Dan Brown. My friend said that his books were poorly written, but exciting.

I could forgive poorly written if something is exciting. The problem was...Dan Brown read very boringly. I fell asleep a few chapters in!

Feh.
 

dgiharris

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On the positive side, it made a nice 'thwump' sound when I threw it :tongue

The only book that i've ever throw was The Lake House by James Patterson.

His ending of that book has got to be the absolute worst ending for a book in the history of books.

*spoiler alert*

Imagine writing a book and then at the last 7 pages of the book right as the story is climaxing (rather weakly I might add) you introduce a new antagonist with super powers that was the one 'all along' who was responsible for everything and then this antanonist dies at the end (in a hookey Scooby Doo sorta way) and the story is resolved.

The ending came so far out of left field it would not have surprised me to learn that the publisher 'accidentally' printed the end of another book.

God, it was sooooo awful that I screamed "You've got to be shitting me" and threw the book.

Mel...