Hits and Misses in Fiction

[rj_anderson]

sartorias aka Sherwood Smith has a fascinating discussion going over on her LJ about when you only like one (or, if they're prolific, two or three) of an author's works and bounce off the rest. So far the responses have mostly been people commisserating and sharing which authors and which books affected them this way, but there's also been some discussion

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Emma Bull, mainly because she never writes the same book twice.

[rj_anderson]

This is true. I've either loved or at least somewhat admired all of the books of hers I've read, but they are all very different and I can see how a reader who adored, say, War for the Oaks might find that frustrating.

[kerravonsen]

War for the Oaks was the very one! I keep re-reading it.

[tezmilleroz]

For me, it's often because the author's interests change, as do mine. They want to (or have to, if publishers don't want to publish their other stuff) write about different things that I don't necessarily read about. I used to do that thing where I read all of authors' works, but now I make sure to read the summaries first, to decide if they're really for me. While it can be true that a great writer can make even an uninteresting topic seem interesting, this is...rare for me.

I enjoyed Dan Wells's THE HOLLOW CITY, but tried the first books of two of his series and they didn't work for me, so I DNFd early.

My tastes have changed over the years. When I first read adult books, they were chick lit. Then moved to crime. Then moved to urban fantasy. Now onto futuristics. And authors have changed genres, too. Such as I usually enjoy Kelley Armstrong's books, but have zero interest in her Age of Legends trilogy, because high/epic/traditional fantasy doesn't interest me at all.

[rj_anderson]

Agreed. There are a couple of writers whose prose I admire and who I know will do a fine job of any subject they choose to write about, but I'm still not interested in vampires, werewolves, ghosts or zombies and it takes a lot to convince me to ignore that.

You make a good point about tastes changing over the years, too. There are books I adored at sixteen that I just can't face the thought of re-reading now.

[kerravonsen]

And authors have changed genres, too. Such as I usually enjoy Kelley Armstrong's books, but have zero interest in her Age of Legends trilogy, because high/epic/traditional fantasy doesn't interest me at all.

Oh yes, good point. Tanith Lee does that for me. While there are a couple of her fantasy works that I love, I find that I enjoy her more on the whole when I read her SF. I think it's partly because, when she brings that lyrical prose to SF, it is refreshing, but when she applies it to fantasy, it becomes heavy-handed. Also, her fantasies tend to be darker than her SF. I mean, I'm not interested in reading about Lords of Darkness, really.

[nuranar]

Hmm. Most of the examples I'm thinking of are more genre-based. Like Georgette Heyer. Her historical-based romances are generally brilliant; they're really good stories based in really solid research to get the setting and language and situation spot-on. But both her mysteries and her more straightforward historical stories leave me pretty uninterested. The characters are good, but somehow I don't usually care about them. The plots aren't interesting enough to me, for whatever reason. Overall, they lack the piquancy and sparkle that all but the romances enjoy.

The other examples are certain SF/F authors, C. J. Cherryh and Ryk Spoor. Both authors have written in science fiction as well as fantasy and blends thereof; I love the more fantasy-ish ones, like the Morgaine books by Cherryh. But her extensive hard SF work I have never been able to get into. I don't care for hard SF at all. She's a brilliant plotter and creates very complex characters; I simply don't care for the genre.

[rj_anderson]

I like Heyer's Regencies and can't get into her mysteries at all, for all the same reasons you mention, so I hear you.

I tried to read Cherryh once in high school and couldn't get past the first couple of chapters, but I can't remember why -- I think the premise of that particular book just didn't interest me. I should maybe try again.

[nuranar]

Which Cherryh was it? She's written a lot, and genre-spanning and genre-mixing to boot. I can totally understand bouncing off one book and then really loving another.

[rj_anderson]

I don't remember! I just looked at a bunch of her book covers and only the Chanur series look familiar, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of those...

[megancrewe]

I think the strongest example of this for me is one you mentioned--I adore THE LAST UNICORN to the point that I'd put it in my top ten books of all time, but the other books by Beagle I've read I've felt nothing more than okay about.

There is also the case of Meredith Ann Pierce's Firebringer trilogy, which I loved the first book of and was so frustrated the other two books were OOP... and then they were re-released and the second book left me so horrified I couldn't even bring myself to read the third (even though I'd already bought it). :P I don't know how those feelings extend to the rest of her work, though, as I think I've only read one other of her books.

[rj_anderson]

Oh dear, being horrified by a book you'd expected to adore is never a nice feeling. I had a similar experience with Ursula LeGuin's Tehanu, which I'd been extremely excited for because I loved so much about the original Earthsea trilogy, but that book was a big DO NOT WANT for me at the age of twenty. I've been afraid to re-read it ever since, though I keep telling myself I should because I might well view it differently now than I did then.

I have a weird relationship with Connie Willis, as well. I absolutely love her light, comedic novels (To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether in particular) and can't bear her darker ones -- I even read Doomsday Book twice to be sure, because so many people do love and admire that book, but it is very much not for me.

[kerravonsen]

I couldn't even start Doomsday Book, it just sounded from the blurb as if it was full of angst with an unhappy ending, and I didn't want to go there. But of course since I haven't actually read it, I could be wrong.
But yes, Bellwether and To Say Nothing of the Dog were great fun with a touch of thoughtfulness.

[rj_anderson]

Doomsday Book is exactly what you think it is, yes. Beautifully written, but utterly bleak and miserable. I thought maybe I'd just missed the point the first time, but nope.

[rose_in_shadow]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned J.K. Rowling. I started A Casual Vacancy knowing that it wasn't Harry Potter, knowing that it was an "adult" novel, but I thought that I would still like it.

I had to put it down about a third of the way through. It was just too grim and drear. I'm afraid to give her Robert Galbraith mysteries a try. I'd rather keep my love of the HP series untainted.

[rj_anderson]

I'm surprised I didn't think of JKR myself, given that HP 7 was such a crushing letdown for me that it soured me on the entire series thereafter. But I haven't read any of her subsequent books, because they sound like the kinds of plots and characters I can't enjoy no matter how skillfully they're written. Good to know I wasn't mistaken about that...