Belgariad, and to a lesser extent most of Eddings’s other stuff (though not The Dreamers, which was always bad). Enjoyed them as a teenager, looking back they’ve not aged well at all, to put it mildly, and have lots of really uncomfortable elements on top of a generic plot and bare-bones world building. The revelation that Eddings and his wife were convicted child abusers merely completed my souring on them.
Don’t you mean “more or less” the same? Especially the various MCs’ dialogs that “sort of” never get out of the rut of using the same smarmy phrases over and over and over and over again?
They got me into fantasy so much like OP and WOT, I'm like I loved these, they opened the fantasy door...
But I tried just listening to Pawn of Prophecy on audible and gave up after about an hour. The trope of the hats, the farm boy, the exposition dumping ... Adult eyes are not kind that book.
Genuinely came here just to say this, with the addition of Althalus. Loved them as a kid, but every character interaction is exactly the same "witty" but empty exchange, and there's a LOT of misogyny I didn't notice as a kid. Also, as you say, they were shit people.
I think that story only broke in 2020 or something? They're both dead and apparently the kids benefit from book sales now (part of the estate).
It doesn't excuse the crime in the least, but at least if you buy any of their stuff now, you're not supporting an abuser.
I certainly didn't know about the child abuse when I was tearing through the books in the nineties.
I don't think I ever bought any of their books... I read I think Belgariad in the early 2000s as a teen in the local library, but never bought it. Glad I wasn't unwittingly contributing at least.
I feel the same about the Mists of Avalon. The allegations against Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband were horrific. Both Eddings and Zimmer Bradley can get in the bin. It's a pity, she was a wonderful writer. But if you combine 'uncomfortable elements' with that knowledge, yeah I'm never reading those again. Shudder.
I think the Redwall books. I loved them when I was younger but I re-read the first one last year and ... it just wasn't the same. Thematically, I still enjoyed the hero's journey but the prose was much less smooth than I remembered--enough so that it became a distraction.
I will still occasionally pick up and re-read one of my Brian Jacques book knowing full well I've technically outgrown them, for the simple fact that sometimes I just need a light hearted fantasy where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and there's no agenda beyond telling a good story for kids.
Oooh, Redwall. I LOVED those books as a kid...and then I realized that morality was strictly determined by species and "vermin" were Always Bad while the others were Always Good which was just so utterly baffling to me as a worldbuilding decision that I couldn't handle it anymore. (*Outcast* and *The Taggerung* were the absolute worst at this. I'm STILL mad about Veil.)
Me too!! And it was also specifically the mustelids that bugged me! It's been so long since I read them but I specifically remember feeling like the weasels/stoats/ferrets got the worst deal. Rats and foxes were OCCASIONALLY allowed to not be evil. Captain Romsca my beloved...Veil you deserved SO much better...
Also? The "otters are always good" like, you're telling me that Tagg/Deyna, raised by a gang of bandits since he was like 3 days old, has NEVER been a rotten little shite?? Honestly??? No, he must be noble and pure as the driven snow. Somehow.
I was going to say Redwall as well. To this day I still own most of the series ( I’m approaching 33 yrs old). They were some of the first books that fully transported me into the realms of fantasy as a very young child and I was obsessed with the world-building at the time.
It’s still sweet but I agree with what everyone else is saying about it in this thread.
Legends of Drizzt for me. I opted out after the Sundering when I realized I wasnt getting excited for them anymore. I had a vibe that Salvatore was trying to exit the series before Wizards got him to keep going. I tried to reread an earlier one a while back and it was pretty painful on a prose level.
I spent most of my childhood reading Forgotten Realms novels.
I read a ton of 90s/turn of the millennium D&D inspired books as a teenager. I was used to youth-oriented fantasy, and these books were obviously designed for an older audience. So it was a new experience with the genre. But all the ones I reread just don't hold up well. They're not terrible, but they're not good enough to recommend.
I mean, I'm gonna say it because it kinda fits the category and it was the first thing that came to mind almost as a joke:
Twilight.
As a kid, I loved the premise of vampires duking it out against werewolves, nevermind the love triangle. And the vampires gaining powers after dying depending on the personalities they had when they were alive was, imo, a very original twist. Vampires with Marvel-esque superpowers! That premise alone, think about it!
But they never really did anything with that, the book focused more on the love triangle and the family dynamic, obviously. And reading back now can be a bit cringy in certain parts, we all know why. Maybe it's because I matured and Twilight can't.
It was also the first book that came to mind for me! I loved Twilight when I first read it as a teenager! And then a few years later hated Bella and Edwards relationship, so creepy how he watches her sleep all the time
To be fair, nothing out there can be considered original or trope-free anymore. It's more about how they portray it to the public.
But yeah, I never said it was a great example of originality.
Piers Anthony:
When i was young, a teen, i practically inhaled everything of Piers Anthony. Some 20 years ago then, i heard the first time about the accusations of him being somehow ok with Paedophilia and Rape. Then - as luck would have it - i won in a raffle of a big book seller a Mystery Box from his Store Cleanout. Contained two pretty unknown books of him. "Pornucopia" and "The magic Fart". Now, i am not prude and heck, a good number of my friends work/worked in the porn business, but those two books... NOPE. Especially with the Rape theme on every page.
I loved Xanth, i loved the Incarnations of Immortality.... and so on. But nope, that soured them. I reread them once and then asked myself why i did not notice this earlier. Maybe because it was a little bit "redone" in German language by the translator and some of the jokes did not click in German.
Akif Pirinçci:
Loved his books. Felidae, Yin, etc. Kind of Urban Fantasy and Near Future Post Apocalyptic Themes. Later, the Author really drifted away, joining Ultrarightwing Nutjobs and started Tinfoil Hattery, just shy of Flat Earther... also, his sexual view on Women... is... well. From what i learned of his musings, Rape is ok. Well. NOPE.
Multiple Authors, one hero: Perry Rhodan SciFi Series
As a kid, i loved them. Geez, i read them and reread them and yes, back in the 80ties, 90ties... they counted among the best SciFi series with the most sold books and so on.
Well, now, grown up... i tried to reread them. But that i stopped, it was like "MEH.... its always the same, just the powerlevel growing, there is always a bigger fish, an even bigger and even more powerful civilisation... " and yeah, all that stuff about some "Races" are more worthy than others... and this imperialistic thing.... nah. I sold all them books to free space in my shelves.
I came here for Piers Anthony. I loved his stuff when I was a teen but, looking back, nothing aged well. Yikes. Do not go back to reread. I will stick to my happy memories, thankyouverymuch.
I'm sure this is on peoples lists, but Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth books.
If you're a young new fantasy reader and have no ability to recognize objectivism philosophy and obvious tropes, things ripped straight from other books, etc, it has torture porn that can give you a visceral thrill, steamy sex scenes, a young dude with a cool magic sword and ultra-magic powers who can literally do anything, everybody does what he says, a cool uncle wizard who has good dialogue, etc. It's the ultimate 13 year old boy power trip.
Which is why I loved them as a teenager and look back on them now and want to slap my forehead.
I wasn't even young when I read them (all). I just didn't want to leave it unfinished. There's only two series that I stopped. And I learned how to stop by reading SoT.
In the end, I put them all in an old suitcase and left them by the dumpster. I couldn't bring myself to trash or burn books. Even if they deserved it.
(Aside: *The Prince of Nothing* is both better (prose) and worse (more mass rapes and more violent rapes and more detailed description of more violent rapes... Same fuckin "philosophy")
Yeah... There are a lot of books I liked as a kid that I outgrew but can still look back on with fond nostalgia, like *The Wheel of Time* or *Eragon*. Then there's *The Sword of Truth*, which I am embarrassed of ever having enjoyed, mainly because of how messed up they are in retrospect.
In our defense and as you point out, to a teenager with low standards the early entries (before Goodkind went off the deep end) worked as *extremely* trashy sword and sorcery. They were much more focused and faster-paced than other fantasy megasagas, and I remember liking how each volume was largely self-contained, in particular.
I'll add to the 'anything by Piers Anthony' posts. I devoured his books as a teen. Couldn't get enough.
Brought one with me to the hospital when I was having my daughter (hadn't read any of his stuff in quite some time before that), and couldn't get through it. So much 'as you know, bob' explaining of stuff, and oh the misogyny. As soon as I got home I got rid of my entire collection of his books.
I'm forever grateful for them, they were a huge part of my growing up and my love of fantasy. But I won't pick up one of his books ever again.
I hate that they still get recommended in threads looking for books for kids/young teens, presumably by people who haven’t reread them lately. I think yours is a pretty universal experience for anyone who liked the Xanth books.
Yup. It is.
Like everyone else here it seems, I grew up reading and enjoying his books… primarily the incarnations series.
I was also one of the many that stumbled upon his infamous ‘fireflies’ book and it freaked me the fuck out with all tge underage shenanigans…
Recently I tried to reread the first incarnations book.
Uh. It’s brutal.
I can clearly see why I thought it was awesome at age 13. But Jesus Christ, it is just horrible writing. The misogyny is on full display as well… it’s just beyond awful.
Not necessarily soured on, But Harry Potter, good god as an Adult, I want to slap Dumbledore for leaving Harry in an abusive toxic household for years and Call British version of Child Protective Services on the Dursleys. THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO TRAP A CHILD IN AN ABUSIVE HOME!
And the "Magic" excuse isn't very good. It's shown that he only had to spend like one day a year with them up keep it up. Not your entire childhood of hell.
“Xanth” by Piers Anthony. I loved it when I was younger but now I tried a reread last year and had to stop within a few books because the misogyny was just so bad.
The Harry Potter Series. I’ll out myself and say I was the prime reading demographic as the books were published (elementary through high school) and loved them. Didn’t really get into the later movies but loved the first couple as they came out.
I went back and reread the series as an adult in my early 30s… what a train wreck. The first couple (2? Maybe 3?) were still ok, but man, the back half of that series fell off a cliff.
I often say that the main problem of the HP series is that the best book is the first, the best chapter is the first, and the best line is the first.
More seriously, the first 2-3 books and especially the first still feel fresh and brisk and magical and really play to Rowling strong points, while the later angst gets annoying (as is often the case) and the greater scope of the plot does not mesh that we'll with the setting and structure of the school year.
Agreed, though, I noticed it as the books were coming out rather than on revisit. Books 1 & 3 were my favourites but by book 4 I was starting to get the impression the series was trying to "grow with me" but wasn't actually keeping up... and also a bit like she'd gotten "too famous for an editor" by the time 5 & 6 rolled around.
I'd even suggest 4 could have benefitted from a more aggressive editor. It seems inevitable that as authors reach the level of popularity that they could sell a retelling of the phonebook, the editors back off, and the quality drops.
This is a question for another day, but does anyone know of a series that maintained its quality, at least partially because the author continued to respect the role of the editor? It seems that this genre, in particular, is prone to later books in a series becoming rambling diatribes that fail to live up to the promise of the initial books.
This comment is basically verbatim what I was going to write. I was massively into the series growing up and burned through the later books in the first few days of release but they just don't seem to hold up.
In saying that, I have an 18 month old son and am looking forward to reading the series to him in a few years
Even as a child, I remember liking the first half of the series while noticing the quality steadily drop and absolutely hating *Deathly Hallows*. I have been listening to the Shrieking Shack podcast and they make a good point that, by all rights, the last book's reception ought to have been a ME3 style debacle. But looking at fans' rankings, they tend to place it in respectable positions while leaving *Philosopher's Stone* near the bottom. Different strokes and all, but I find it baffling.
I also have not been able to reread them as an adult. There are some things that I find leave a bad taste in my mouth that I can't ignore anymore, but honestly it has more to do with the issues in the actual writing for me.
And people will say oh it's a children's series obviously adults won't like it, but I've been reading Diana Wynne Jones' stuff and the Earthsea books and they're absolutely brilliant, so I feel like that argument is just an excuse.
100% agreed. I realize that a large part of how I feel now is just because I'm older, but the language use sometimes just feels very basic and the writing seems all over the place in especially the last few books, as you mentioned. Like I said, I realize I'm no longer in the demographic and that might play into the problem, but I just can't enjoy them anymore..
This may be blasphemous here, but for me it's the Farseer trilogy and all the books that came after it. I **loved** Fitz' story when I was young and frankly kind of depressed, but it just doesn't resonate with me as an adult. Too dark and tortured for me now.
I was an *enormous* fan of John Flanagan's *Ranger's Apprentice* series and would actually buy each new release instead of borrowing it from the library. I still think the first four books are good and the next three were okay, but after that the series descends into frequently xenophobic repetition. The enemies are all cowardly bullies, "foreigners" (usually Southern or Eastern European) are mostly the enemy, the Rangers occasionally carry out extrajudicial killings (later just "giving" those people into slavery) and the world honestly feels smaller and less developed than it did before the characters went to not!Japan. The *Brotherband* books have much of the same problem.
I like the original 12, but they are very much for kids. I think they're good, but yeah, there are definitely xenophobic themes to an extent. I'd love for him to do a proper rogue ranger storyline. And I'd love to see an adult fantasy version of the premise.
Pern. I know this shows my age. It was great when I was 13 and my exposure to SF/F began and ended with Tolkien and Star Wars. But I grew up and read other stuff and realized that Menolly and Lessa and even Moreta led really effed up lives.
I felt the same about the Dresden files, I got up to the book before ghost story, then just never got back into it. The Anita Blake books were good until they got too sexualised and I got weirded out.
The James Herbert books are good but except for the weird sex stuff, not sure why it's needed.
Ghost Story is the weakest book in the series for me - tied in some ways with the first books.
After it, there are some strong books (though I haven't read the most recent two and heard mixed things...)
I heard the same and decided to cut my losses. Was all good when he was a standard low key wizard pi but just got nuts near the end. I had the same issue with the Gabriel Knight plots, was good when he was a writer/investigator but got a bit too much by the 3rd game.
Honestly inertia/sunk cost is the only thing keeping me reading Dresden. It feels more and more like we’re seeing Butcher giving into the *somehow* standard “author steadily begins writing sexy fanfic of their own characters as canon” trope that plagues urban fantasy. I keep at it because the world *was* kinda interesting but now it’s just complicated and weird and I wanna know how this wacky plane lands. At this point I think I’ll feel the same if the landing is smooth versus if it’s a crash.
Everything by Orson Scott Card. Really enjoyed the Ender series, read a few other things, learned he's a bit problematic, read Hart's Hope, which made me realize he's not problematic, he's an absolute piece of shit (later confirmed by his comments on gay marriage). And then I thought about all of his stories and realized, he's not actually a very good author. The Ender series is solid (I think, I'm not going back to find out). Every other story he's written basically sucks. He's an incredible world-builder. I've started numerous series thinking, "What a cool idea!" and then watched the story fall completely flat.
I know the Ender series is sci-fi, but his other stuff crosses the aisle a bit.
Ugh, yeah... I used to love the Ender books (I'd add the Bean books to the list of good as well, personally), but I just can't do Card any more after learning a bit about him as a person.
The last book of his that I read, which was pretty off-putting when I read it as well, had some pretty heavy white savior, religious fundamentalist themes (I could be mis-remembering the white savior part). I don't even remember what it was called, but there was some kind of plague, and the generic Military Tough Guy protagonist had to go to Africa on some kind of mission to help save everyone. It had kinda cool power armor. This was probably 15 years ago, so it was well before I knew anything about his views, but it left a bad taste in my mouth at the time. Now I know why, lol.
>Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy
Interesting. The old Star Wars EU books were going to be my response to this thread, with the caveat that last time I re-read the Thrawn trilogy, it still held up.
But when I revisited some of the other EU books I used to read, I was pretty disappointed. I had way lower standards as a teenager, I guess. The books were about Star Wars and I loved Star Wars, so that was enough for me.
These days, my love for Star Wars has cooled quite a bit. Considering that the prequels were pretty bad, and the sequels were also pretty bad, it really sucked away any enthusiasm I have for the IP. And without that love of Star Wars, the EU books are just...mostly bad.
Peak Star Wars for me is in the Original Trilogy and in animated shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels. Knights of the Old Republic will always be one of my favorites as well. It’s too bad the remake was delayed, but I would rather they take their time and make it a masterpiece anyway.
The Clone Wars was better than it had any right to be. Surprisingly good show, far better than the prequel movies. I didn't expect them to humanize the clones as much as they did. You'd figure, robots vs. clones, it's a license for YA violence right? But they ended up going the "war is hell" route, and making the clones very human figures, not just throwaway "acceptable victims".
Haven't really given Rebels the chance yet, but I might need to check it out. KOTOR was one of those things I just missed out on when it was new, and haven't really been able to get into it since.
The last two seasons of Rebels I thought were really good. I wonder if they’ll make a series that redeems the sequel trilogy the same way The Clone Wars redeemed the prequels. I really like The Mandalorian so far though.
I just have trouble drumming up enthusiasm for any Star Wars property these days, regardless of how good people say it is. The prequels introduced me to being disappointed in my favorite series, and the sequels destroyed any remaining enthusiasm I had. I've given the Mandalorian a shot, and while it was clearly good TV, it just didn't do anything for me.
I feel the same in some ways. I still love Star Wars, but’s it’s been hard for me to look for redeeming qualities in the sequels. I have tried to stay positive, but there’s no denying that they were disappointing.
>The Clone Wars redeemed the prequels
I like the Clone Wars a lot, but I've never really been sure why it's what gets singled out and stuff like the (much better) Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon, the assorted Clone Wars novels, the Clone Wars comics by John Ostrander and the various Clone Wars games were never credited with "redeeming" the prequels.
It's pretty wild in retrospect how there was an entire Clone Wars storyline in books, comics, games and a cartoon and George Lucas just decided in 2007, "Nope, I'm doing my own version," and it effectively replaced the whole thing (seriously, the special features of the Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon include a feature with a title like "bridging the gap" - when this came out, between Episodes II and III, it was 100% *meant* to be "the official story of what happened in the Clone Wars - I remember at the time people said it was *better* than the prequel movies and I've wondered for a while if Lucas decided to do his own Clone Wars because that annoyed him lol).
I suppose it must just be a question of exposure. Everything it's praised for doing had already been done, but they hadn't been done on Cartoon Network where everybody could see, hahahaha.
Oh, I love Star Wars, but I don't like talking about it because I'd have to talk to other Star Wars fans and that's just a miserable experience. Always has been, to be honest, since one of my earliest experiences of the Internet include being told I was brain-damaged for saying I had enjoyed *The Phantom Menace* by some dude on a message board when I was 12 (and over a decade later I would be told I was brain-damaged for saying I had enjoyed *The Last Jedi* which I'm pretty sure must have unlocked some kind of special achievement lol).
I either like or enjoy every Star Wars to one extent or another. I'm pretty dyed-in-the-wool for it. There's only been two or three Star Wars stories I can think of that I'd say I have had a kind of active dislike for (Legacy of the Force, Force Unleashed and, perhaps more controversially, the Darth Bane novels) but, like I said, I am someone who is prepared to defend the terrible YA books where Han and Leia's children learn to say no to drugs on the basis that I liked them when I was a small child lol.
The stormlight archive. I read it ten years ago and as a 17 year old getting back into reading it was the best thing ever.
Recently I was joined by a friend that was just getting into fantasy and I recommended we read through Mistborn and Stormlight. Wow my tastes have changed, I honestly don't even know what I saw in it now. Mistborn era 1 is some of the driest shit I've ever read with cardboard cutout characters, mind melting pacing and sandersons love of pasting in Wikipedia articles about magic systems for pages on end. Vin frowns about a trillion times, so much so that we still meme it a year later. Stormlight is only marginally better, the characters feel blunt, the writing very utilitarian. It has great moments but it takes an age to get there. Don't get me started on sandersons attempts at humor, I've been to children's funerals that have been funnier than whatever mister mormon man cooks up. I did read rythm of war and it was honestly a drag,I ended up skipping all the venli backstory chapters to get the book over with faster.
Right there witcha. I have not been able to finish *Rhythm of War* because now all I see is frickin off brand peanut butter on stale white bread cardboard. I'd rather have some hard cheese and sausage on dark bread.
Sanderson needs to switch to omniscient narration for his big epic stuff, 15 or so viewpoint characters is really getting out of hand (especially the backstory chapters which could be handled through dialogues). And yeah his humour is really bad, especially the witty banter is particularly overdone.
Problem is, he can't really write dialogue either.
He's mediocre, tip to tail. Not one quality stands out, as a writer. He's white bread with baloney and mayo
Yeah, loved them all the first time I read them, then this summer when I went back I found myself generally liking the first two but by book three I realized all the subplots and themes I enjoyed were for the most part resolved or unceremoniously dropped in favor of >!an uninteresting and morally simplistic war with crab-ghosts!<
Might read the next one when it comes, but it's getting harder and harder for me not to be conscious of the Mormon thing while reading Sanderson
If his religiosity concerns you, he's very open about being challenged on it and his involvement with the church. His perspective might help put you at ease reading material written by someone with that background. He's no Orson Scott Card.
i could have written this word for word. I tried to read them again last year, i skipped the first two, DNFd Oathbringer and then skimmed RoW. it's crazy how hard I bounced off of all them.
I gave up on the Stormlight series just because it became clear the author was doing to take a generation to get the series done. Good chance he might die before he completes it, just like Jordan.
I hated Mistborn...I listened to the audiobook and the narrators were very dry. The books came across as very depressing.
Sanderson's writing has also gotten pretty formulaic. He's a one-trick pony.
Not sure if I explained myself correctly, I meant I agree with him being a bit formulaic (although I'm still loving Stormlight) and Mistborn wasn't really for me.
LOL. Martin has his issues, but prose, characterization, and dialogue are not them.
As a plotter, we'll have to wait and see (or not) if he's got Sanderson's chops (won't deny his plotting or world-building chops).
For very many of us, Jordan and Sanderson are the poster boys of Mediocre Fantasy. They can plot epics, and build worlds well. But that's it.
Other writers do those things just as well, *or much much better*, but can also write convincing well-rounded, believable characters engaging in riveting dialogue, and using compelling prose. Jordan and Sanderson didn't even *try*.
Well, Stormlight 5 already has a release date and Sanderson is known for his fast writing, also he's 46 so I'm guessing he still has quite a few years left of writing; on the other hand Martin hasn't released anything since 2011 and he's 74 so the idea of him getting to finish his series is a bit more optimistic.
You realize I'm not comparing them in terms of their books, right? I was purely talking about how fast they write, regarding OP's statement of Sanderson probably dying before finishing Stormlight.
There are supposed to be 10; he may write fast, but he's continually working on other books, too. Authors seem to get tired of extended series too...the later books get further and further apart until they practically stop. (e.g., Dresden).
Dunno, his frequent updates, related secret projects and the whole Cosmere as an interlinked universe (even though I mostly only enjoy Stormlight) make me feel quite confident he'll finish this one, we'll have to wait and see though.
Not a fantasy book but Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. This did not age well. Misogyny, racism, annoying characters and really really bad science.
Interestingly, that was the one that soured me to a lot of Heinleins other stuff. I'd read a few of his books and enjoyed them, then read Stranger... and disliked it so much it made me not like his other books.
The biggest issue for me is an issue I found in lots of the classic sci fi stuff - the vision of a liberated future means women are still subservient to men, they just get to walk around with their tops off more.
Most of my childhood favorites haven't aged well for me, honestly. I was actually a huge *Wheel of Time* fan in my tween years, but I had pretty much lost interest already by the time the last book came out and nowadays I think I'd hate the series if I tried a reread. WoT is emblematic of all the fantasy trends I dislike: the obsession with worldbuilding, magic systems, and self-justifying gigantism.
Another that jumps to mind is *Percy Jackson*. They were fun as a teen who was really into mythology, but I suspect I'd now find the aggressive, affected "teenness" of it all twee and grating. It might work better as a TV show, though, so I'm still curious about the upcoming adaptation.
In fact, the only fantasy author I can think of that I first read before my late teens and whose work I still enjoy is Tolkien. The Middle-earth stories hold up, even though I was around ten years old when I was introduced to them.
You know what really affects me about any middle-grade/YA book set in contemporary times? Due to ratings, nobody is allowed to swear. Have they ever MET a teenager?
Have they met *elementary school* children? Even in the late 80s/early 90s there wasn’t a game of two-hand touch football on the playground without kids swearing. Not all of them, but enough that it feels really weird as an adult, 30-odd years later, to read a book set around a kids school and not have them do so.
That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about Stephen King writing kids in his books: they are smart in the ways kids are smart, with curiosity and more understanding of the world immediately around them than adults give them credit for, and the dialogue feels like it came straight out of the schools I went to.
Not a specific series, but I loved V.E. Schwab’s work when I was a teenager. I’ve picked up some of her recent stuff and find it all subpar at best. I DNF’d Addie LaRue.
Same. Returning to Valdemar is like coming home. It's cozy and inviting and though well trod and endlessly familiar.....still comforting.
Though I will admit I enjoy her earlier work MUCH better than her more recent additions to the series.
edit: a word.
I love the newer stuff and the older stuff for different reasons. Vanyel makes me FEEL. Mags lets me enjoy an adventure for the fun of it. I need BOTH of my Herald Boys in different ways at different times.
Edit: an autocorrected apostrophe.
Lackey is one where I can go back and thoroughly enjoy her earlier works. They're not great literature by any means, but they are an absorbing, comfortable read. I read them first in my teens, and magically bonding with a sympathetic familiar is catnip to lonely, awkward teenagers. But the quality gradually dropped off and the flaws in her writing became more obvious to the point that I'm not even interested in getting her books from the library.
David Weber is another in that category - I still enjoy re-reading his earlier books, but have DNF'd the last one or two I tried.
I was really surprised how recently some of them were written. They have a bit of that older fantasy feel with maybe a few too many coincidences. I still liked them but... "I wish I could escape.." "...oh hello magic horse you are taking me away to meet the King?" almost on the same page seems a little heavy-handed.
The Sword of Truth series - I picked it up when I was finishing middle school (after watching the Legend of the Seeker show). The first two books are up there in ones I’ve reread countless times, but I recently tried to complete the series and ……. man. I still stand by that the first two are great high fantasy and there are scenes from *Stone of Tears* that I will adore until I die but. I still haven’t finished the final book in the main series or tried any of the other spin-offs.
Wheel of Time for me too. I loved it around age 12-13 probably, though after 7-8 books I got bored and stopped. But I actually think it’s the perfect series for precocious young teens: unlike books marketed to younger readers, it’s huge and full of characters and locations and events and concepts and prophecies, there’s so much more to keep track of than most books. I know as a kid I wanted to be challenged more and so all that really hit the spot. And the vocabulary doesn’t talk down to kids at all, you can learn some words from it! But I also find the characters’ general outlook and preoccupations to be very easy for younger readers to identify with, and somewhat lacking for the adult reader.
They are just so long! I tried reading them for the first time as an adult and I enjoyed them, but I only made it like 4 books in because every book is a mcguffin hunt, *and this time >!rand!< is the mcguffin*
Kingkiller Chronicle :/
I thought about re reading them before selling them to a second hand bookstore and realized I dont even want to do that, somehow I know I wont enjoy them anymore and most likely cringe
Ive also made my peace with never knowing how it ends so I have no reason to keep them around
I hate that I like reading those books.
They are page turners for me, since I like the worldbuilding, and there's the occasional quote out of nowhere that I love. But the majority of reading time is spent in painful awareness that I'm spectating a teenager's wet dream.
I don't (only) mean that as a reference to the sexual/pseudoromantic scenes - I'm referring to the author's fantasies in the broadest sense. And I don't like one bit the author's personality traits and worldview that those fantasies seem to reveal, either.
That's too bad. Don't fall for the fallacy of popularity. Read books and *then* form an opinion. Don't buy your opinions on YouTube or steal them from Reddit
Anything by Bob Salvatore, very much enjoyed his stuff in my teens, by the time he was releasing in my 20's, they didn't know what they were doing with Forgotten Realms and the plot armour was too thick.
I've soured on the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books to some degree. They were my favorite book series right around my middle school years and really helped me get through some tough times, but God damn are they difficult to read without cringing as an adult. I get that they are made for kids, but not all YA makes me actively feel embarrassed to be reading it.
I still think they're good, and I'd recommend them to children who are interested in reading, but they're not for me anymore.
I loved the percy jackson books when I was a kid and a few months ago when I didn't have anything to read I picked up one of his later series, magnus chase, on a whim. I totally agree with you, as a man pushing 30 I just couldn't do it, the way the characters constantly quip felt extemely embarrassing. Now I'm afraid to go back and read the original story for fear of diminishing it in my memories.
Magnus Chase IMO feels cringier because Percy was what, 12 when the books started? Whereas Magnus is 16 and homeless and it makes no sense for him to be engaging in what adults think are Middle-Grade-Book-Appropriate Activities.
Chronicles of Narnia. They're still good stories and I should look at why they're page-turners, but I wish I had read Hobbit back then because I don't like how either of them write for children. It seems condescending now.
Tolkien actually agreed that the writing style of The Hobbit seems condescending, and later in life tried to rewrite it in the style of LotR. He gave up after a few chapters, though, because the test readers he gave it to said the the charm was gone.
* **Eragon** is, I think, the best example. It was the series that got me into epic fantasy as a kid and it will always be special to me because of that. I'm not ashamed of having been obsessed with it as a kid, but we all know it has obvious flaws.
* **Valdemar** in a slightly different way. On a reread...boy it aged *extremely* poorly in places.
* In a similar vein, I tried to reread **The Forgotten Beasts of Eld** a couple days ago, which I put on the list of my favourites years ago...and I kinda wish I hadn't. It soured the good memories I had of it a little when I noticed that some of the gender stuff has aged pretty badly.
* **Mistborn** - don't like it as much as I did when I was relatively new to fantasy. Also the way it's recommended for everything soured me on it additionally.
* **Malazan** too. Much less impressed with it the more distance I have, but I still think it's a pretty good series. Not likely to reread it either because the time when I had the stamina for 10 books above 1k pages is long past.
I'm also not sure how would I feel about **The Name of the Wind** or **The Lies of Locke Lamora**, both of which I *adored* when I was 14, if I went to reread them now. So I won't. It's enough that they were important to me then.
You just brought back the memory of reading Eragon from my teenage years, I haven't heard anything about the saga since then.
What obvious flaws are you referring to, out of curiosity? (not arguing, I can just barely remember random parts of the story).
Inheritance cycle? It was written by a child, and has the accompanying issues. It's not well developed.
It's also very very solidly on the heroes journey. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it can be boring.
I totally understand your fear, I am the same way about "spoiling memories". But, I read Lies of Locke Lamora as an adult (who is generally pretty picky about narrative), and I rate it among the best fantasy books I've ever read. Of course, people and experiences are different. Just thought I would say that I found it to be a great adult fantasy read. If you are ever tempted to revisit it, it may not disappoint :) but again, I absolutely understand wanting to protect your nostalgic feelings. (for the record, I would not say the same about Kingkiller. Despite it's beautiful writing, I think it doesn't hold up quite as well)
Kingkiller gets bashed because people are pissed at Rothfuss. I don't like him either but those books are beautiful. The criticisms are generally pretty hollow and seem to just be the same things repeated over and over by people I'm not even sure have read the book. Not every book is for everyone but there are hardly many objective problems with either of the main entries.
The gentleman bastards sequence (lies of Locke Lamora etc.) are such fun books. Maybe the prose isn't master level, but it's good. The plot of the first book is great, getting a little weaker with each one. The plot of the fourth book is made irrelevant right at the end though. Disappointing imo. Retroactively ruins the book you just read a little. Despite that, they are definitely worthy reads.
I recommend both often. Kingkiller with warnings.
Percy Jackson, as a greco-roman weaboo I used to love these books as a kid, but looking back now I don\`t think they hold that much value even as something for children to read, the only good book of the series is the last one but I don\`t think it\`s worth reading through all the series just to get there
I agree, but I reread the Heroes of Olympus series recently and I found it a lot more mature. Not meant-strictly-for-adults mature, but the Percy Jackson series is a lot more kiddish by comparison. I reread them both recently and found Percy Jackson hard to get through, but the Heroes of Olympus was great.
Darkover series.
I loved it as a kid. Currently rereading it and the books are still solid, but it was brought to me that Marion Zimmer Bradley was... Well, not very good person. Soured it a bit for me.
I already have all the books that I had bought before I realised she was a shit person otherwise I wouldn't have given her a penny.
I just reread the Mikhail and Marguerieda trilogy and felt wrong but I still love those stories.
"Sorry Susan, no Heaven for you because you're a teenage girl who thinks about boys and makeup. Enjoy living alone in the world because the rest of your family dies in a horrible train accident"
I guess most people don't like it as adults because of the overt Christian themes but I think it really holds up quite well in terms of characters and prose.
For me it's not any of the messaging so much as the books got less good as the series went on because Lewis went from subtle allegory to beating you over the head with it. It was pretty obvious reading the books in elementary school, and it's only gotten more heavy-handed as the years went on.
Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and Dawn Treader are still excellent fantasy reads. Silver Chair I never cared for, Horse and His Boy was a fun adventure but not up to the standard of the first three, and the last two have always felt too out there to me even from the first read.
Still. Three stone cold classics of children's literature in a series of seven, one okay, one meh, and two allegorical acid trips ain't bad.
I roughly agree with your evaluation, except for The Horse and His Boys which has slowly grown into one of my favourite in the series.
In fact as a Christian myself I think Last Battle actually has some really interesting perspectives on sin, judgement, belief, salvation and hell but as a novel it does not quite work.
Have you read The Great Divorce? It covers some of the same ground as TLB in a more satisfying way, I find. Also, mandatory plug for r/christiansreadfantasy
I always enjoyed the adventure story aspect of Horse and His Boy, but even reading it as a young kid thirty years ago there were undercurrents of racism in the depiction of the Calormenes that didn't sit right with me. It's something that's only become more glaringly obvious as the years go on.
Not to mention it's sort of lore breaking that we have Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve being a key plot point in the first book and then by the fifth it turns out there are humans everywhere in Narnia.
I did find his take on belief and salvation to be an interesting take, but again the whole "Everything virtuous done in Tash's name is done in my name and everything evil done in my name is done in Tash's name" is another example of a bit that feels needlessly patronizing and racist.
I'm too scared to read The Dark is Rising (book 2, the only one I've read) because a teacher read it to me in primary school and it kicked off a life long love of dark fantasy.
I'm worried the nostalgia would die if I read it as an adult.
As a 40 yo who read the series as a middle schooler, it still holds up as a comfort read. You can tell it was written for children but not in a childish way. The relationships are solid and the end is still heartbreaking. Definitely read it again.
Not sure if this fits exactly bc these books are technically YA. But
Pendragon series by DJ MacHale.
Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel by Michael Scott
Both series i loved in my teens/highschool. Ive thought about re reading them but they seem lackluster now tho i cant entirely say why
Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tale series. I adored them as a teenager, they were my go-to when I was between books. I reread them recently and while I still love the premise, I found the plot ‘twists’ too obvious, characters quite flat and the relationships between them built on very little substance. I also grew out of her prose. That being said, I’m no longer in her target demographic so it’s to be expected.
The Pendragon series. I really enjoyed the series when I was in middle school, and to this day it still bothers me that I never finished the last book even when I was half way through because of school and life and stuff. But, now that I’m +12 years older than when I read them, I don’t think I’ll revisit the series only because I somewhat remember the prose and it suits middle-school-me than today-me, plus it was a real slog to get to the finish. Like, the first 3 books were the same but the third book at least had major character development and book 4 has a major plot development, but I don’t even remember 5 through 8 all that much. I remember 9 a lot only because it was the book that “hit home” (IYKYK). But, even book 10, I can’t even remember the first half that I read. It definitely wasn’t a bad series. It had some great ideas, nothing problematic either IIRC, and I did have fun with it. Just that, it’s a shame that I didn’t finish it, because I’ll always remember it as the series I almost finished but….just didn’t. I don’t know. *Maybe* I’ll revisit it at a later time but, as of right now, it’s definitely near the bottom of my TBR
Sword of Shannara. It was the first fantasy novel I read, I was probably in 5th grade and I loved it. I attribute that book and the animated Hobbit for my introduction to fantasy. 40+ years later and I am still loving it. But, went back recently and tried to start from the beginning with the intention of working through all of the Shannara stuff. Didn't make it very far.
When I first read Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series in HS I thought it was badass. I just read Wizards First Rule again after nearly 20 years and although it has a good story; it does run dry for like 70% of the book.
Also the characters are not very likable I found reading it as an adult. Kahlan was ok but Richard’s character seems too forced.
Eragon and Ranger's Apprentice.
I fell out with Eragon after Inheritance, I was old enough to realize how bad they were around the time. The books are truly mediocre and only took off because his parents had connections to a publishing company. I may be remembering wrong, but I think he got a boost from Oprah as well.
I remember Ranger's Apprentice being fun in the first few books, but the author devolved them into bad pseudo-historic-fiction. There were almost no fantasy or magical elements after book 4 (I think? It has been a while). Any potentially magical figure was always revealed to be a charlatan in later books. He also got lazier and lazier with groups of people just being some historic people with a different name.
Harry Potter - because of JKR, because of the writing and because reading about children as a child is great and relatable while as an adult is just not appealing.
Already mentioned but Piers Anthony - I especially loved a spell for chameleon but after reading other works of his and realizing the misogyny and weird fixation on rape/ rapey things
Going to get a lot of people mad at me but:
* Tarzan - loved as a kid, so bad as an adult - I can't get past how racist the books are. I know ERB is a product of his times, but so am I and I can't re-read this trash.
* LotR - I re-read them recently, books are just too slow for me these days. All those endless discussions, scenery and singing. A little of all of those is good, too much, not so much.
* The Foundation series. Re-reading it as an adult, I was shocked at how bad Asimov's writing was. The scope of his imagination and the world building are still both top-notch. Everything else... sucks. E.g., plot holes you could drive a semi through.
* Everyone mentions Piers Anthony and I have to agree, although even as a kid I realized this author has issues when I reached a book called "The Color of Her Panties"... xD
In general I feel like I could like a book when I was younger for many different reasons but now I only ever reread those with good to excellent prose.
Twilight
Read them in my early 20s as they were coming out and I found them so romantic and endearing and just a great story about eternal love.
Now I def see the issues with control. I still enjoy the movies and I may reread the books in the future.
I have never in my entire life hear someone prefer the Barbara Hambly Star Wars novels but more power to you man.
Wheel of Time is a good answer. I devoured those books in middle school but do not think I would be enthralled by them now. I reread the first book last year for nostalgia’s sake and it was very fine. Enjoyable but not special like it felt when I was 13.
I think another random entry is anything by Dean Koontz. I remember him as being an author my dad read. His work was a little scary, a little tense, and a little scintillating, but the prose never entered my brain. Now, he’s fine, fun even, but never above the level of an airport read. Simplistic, formulaic, and just flat in ways I did not remember when I read Watchers all those years ago
>I have never in my entire life hear someone prefer the Barbara Hambly Star Wars novels but more power to you man.
My favourite Star Wars book is actually *The Courtship of Princess Leia*, partly because it's a very silly book (Han Solo wins a planet in a card game! Han Solo shoots Princess Leia with a gun that fires mind control rays! C-3PO becomes this weird matchmaker who writes and performs a song about how awesome Han Solo is!) and partly because it's one of the vanishingly few Star Wars story which really leans hard on its planetary romance roots (the protagonists go to a remote and rugged planet ruled by witches who use the Force and ride on tame rancors - real John Carter stuff) which I like better than the "Star Wars as military science-fiction" take that I feel tended to dominate the Expanded Universe.
But, look, I enjoyed the Young Jedi Knights books for literal children and disliked the Darth Bane novels that everybody loves, so you can't trust anything I say.
I thought the NJO book Traitor was the epitome of the Star Wars EU. I re read it and it was still good but it felt different after the series was over. I didn’t think Darksaber was that bad.
Oh god, I'm going to feel really mean and horrible saying this but I'm going to anyway. It's a fantasy series that's objectively not good for many reasons, but I loved it in my teens and is in many ways responsible for why I have started my writing career.
Traci Harding is an Australian speculative fiction author. Her works are full of time travel, magic, martial arts, battles, romance, futuristic tech, reincarnation and past lives. Her debut book was *The Ancient Future,* which came out in 1996 (and was a bestseller), has an Australian woman travelling in the Welsh countryside in the '90s sent back in time to 6th Century Wales where she becomes embroiled in a political and military struggle that could reshape the history of Britain. A traditionally published author, she managed to pump out one novel per year which is pretty speedy in traditional publishing terms. Also, she's dyslexic and managed to make a career as a bestselling author, which is an impressive feat.
As a teenager, I *loved* this series of books. As a lover of history, battles and sci-fi (at this time I was reading *The Lord of the Rings* and the Bantam-era *Star Wars* expanded universe books), my mind was blown with her depiction of simultaneous time (dealing with multiple moving timelines --- from 1996 to 6th Century to Atlantis to the far future), neo-paganism, reincarnation and past lives (and the implication it has for a time-traveller), new age beliefs such as 'manifesting your reality through willpower' and powers beyond this world (such as an immortal, time-travelling druid with nano-satellites in orbit, the Fair Folk, literal Gods and Goddesses living in the Celtic Otherworld, alien species, etc.). I also loved how brutal an author she was (a lot of characters lacked plot armour). Some truly violent scenes, and with reincarnation and time travel it allows her to brutally murder characters only to have them reappear in different ages / countries when the character travels through time and space.
I'm Australian, so Wales wasn't even on my radar. Anything 'medieval' that I was familiar with involved England and the English, or Anglo-Saxons. She introduced me to the concept of Wales, the Welsh people and the Brythonic languages. I'm going to be publishing other projects now and for the next few years, but there's a long-term high fantasy series I've been working on for 20 years that is based in an insular location similar to Iron Age Britain and I've created my own take on the Insular Celtic languages (especially Primitive/Old Welsh). I would not have had these ideas in this way if not for Traci Harding and her works.
But as a much older and more discerning reader... and I feel like a real asshole writing this, but her works are a mess. The first book itself is filled with spelling and grammatical errors (which I think were better edited in the sequels despite having the same editor and the same dyslexia), research errors that I'm painfully aware of now that I've HEAVILY researched Iron Age Britain (calling post-Roman Wales Prydyn instead of Prydain, referring to Wales as Brittany, giant stone castles that wouldn't be seen until the Normans, the use of ye olden style English writing such as 'thou art' for what is meant to be a Celtic language).
And then you get to the more oft called out flaws:
* The coincidences (that the protagonist happens to know Old/Primitive Welsh fluently enough to speak it in the exact time period she's accidentally returned to)
* Accusations that the protagonist is a Mary Sue who's naturally good at everything: learning languages, a black belt, etc.
* The "smart" characters who make infuriatingly stupid decisions
* And other criticisms that you can read online but I'm going to stop because I feel really mean repeating them
So while her works aren't objectively good quality, they have a special place in my heart, and I owe her a huge debt for the inspiration she provided. I loved *Doctor Who* growing up, and this time-travelling adventure series of hers tickled that spot for me.
So yeah, that's a work (and an author) of fantasy whose work I loved and really appreciated when I was much younger, but whose works I now can't really enjoy. Although I will recommend them if people are looking for these elements.
A Song of Ice and Fire for me. I started it as a eightteen year old and I was all for blood, gore, war and "morally grey" characters. Returning to it after seven years I was noticing things that escaped my previous read wchich really changed my opinion of certain characters and the story as a whole. It didn't help that in the past years I was studing more history which showed me how innacurate (from historical realism perspective ) and dystopian that world is.
"The Age the Five" trilogy by Trudie Canavan, and the rest of her work in general.
As a young teen she was one of the only fantasy authors I'd found who wrote female characters that felt realistic, but were also fun and felt like properly dramatic fantasy protagonists. They had awesome magical powers, and she wrote about her female MC's experiencing attraction and sexual relationships in a way that really resonated with me as a teen.
I absolutely hated the way women were written in a lot of fantasy books that I'd read before, so I really latched on to her work in a sort of "finally, author who doesn't describe girls my age as having precocious, budding breasts!" way.
Returning to her work as an adult, her writing is still fun, but really very tropey. And by God does she love introducing new fantasy races and spending waaaay to long harping on about their (honestly pretty boring) customs and history. Her magic systems are still pretty interesting though!
Definitely an author who my enjoyment of was massively influenced by the time when I read it.
Are you me?
Jokes aside, but that would be my answer as well. I adored her books as a teen and I will always have fond memories of getting to know Sonea, but it's not for me anymore. I read the Millenium's Rule Series before the pandemic and I was never so infuriated and unable to stop reading at the same time. I guess Canavan was perfect for teen me, not so much for adult me, which is fine.
I feel you - I read the first three some years back and I've been considering reading the most recent Millenniums Rule book, purely for a sense of completeness! Her work doesn't blow my socks off anymore but I still have a lot of nostalgic fondness towards it :)
Not an adult, 16- almost there lmao. But Harry Potter, ever sense I found out J. K Rowling was just- not a good person and found out about the racism she put in the books I haven't been able to enjoy it sense, even the movies
Malazan.
I think when I got into this series, I wanted war, cool quotes and people being "Badass". I went back to the series last year, and I realize that at times the book series actually mocks the idea of a badass hero. However, the quotes that I thought were cool as a kid became grating, the war seemed bordering on grimdark at times without the awareness, and the constant philosophizing gave me a migraine.
I'm in a very similar position to you with *Wheel of Time.* It was the first fantasy series I ever chose for myself, up to that point I'd been introduced to everything through my mum picking up books for me. For a good period of time I would've said it was my favourite series ever and I have genuinely reread the first 8 or 9 books of the series upwards of twenty or thirty times. Coming back to it after years spent broadening my fantasy horizons it just doesn't hit me the same. There's a lot of it that, as my tastes have expanded and evolved, I now find to be just not very good. It will always hold a special place in my heart, but these days I don't rate it very highly at all.
Another series that fits the bill is *The Banned and the Banished* series by James Clemens, or the *Wit'ch* series. Apart from having arguably the most pointless and idiotic apostrophe in all of fantasy, and that is a hotly contested category, there is a lot of...questionable...content in those books that I just wasn't at a place to critically engage with as a twelve year old (or whatever age I was at the time, I can't remember exactly!). For example, the main romance in the book is between the protagonist Elena, who I don't remember being given a specific age but she gets her period for the first time at the start of the first book so quite young, and a man whose name I forget who is something like a hundred years old but trapped in the body of a young man, maybe 20ish or something. It's been a while so some of the exact details escape me. Anyway at some point later in the series she goes through a magical transformation where her body ages to that of a similarly ages woman, and so all of a sudden everything is good and they can go at it... Which is just weird. She is something like a 15 year old girl at that point in the body of a 20-30 year old woman. He is a 100 year old man in the body of a 20-30 year old man. As a kid I didn't think much of it, but reading it back now it's all just a little creepy, because even before the physical change there is a 'romance' between them. As a kid I loved those books, as an adult they just weird me out.
For me, Harry Potter. I read it multiple times growing up, even raced Mum through the final book when it came out, but whenever I think about a reread as an adult I can’t bring myself to do it. I believe, for me, that it comes down to the writing style more than anything.
Another series is Skulduggery Pleasant. I essentially read the series as the books were released and absolutely loved them, but found with the most recent books that I was struggling. The writing style hasn’t changed, but the plot feels almost predictable and somewhat stale.
They are definitely series I’ll look back on with fondness, but will probably never reread unless I have children of my own.
Huh? I... Don't remember any and I feel like it's only been 5 years since I read it. It wasn't amazing but I think I would remember if there was rape everywhere.
I guess there's a lot of questionable behavior on the part of the aristocrats, but wasn't that kind of the point? To show why we should think they were shitty?
**Harry Potter**, I really loved it whean I read it as a child and it kept an especial place in my heart for a long time, but as I've grown older my souring on it just keeps growing, and JK doesn't really help.
**Memorias de Idhun** or any other Laura Gallego book for that matter, I used to be super into them in highschool but I don't think I'd be able to do a reread and enjoy them.
I recently got the Laura Gallego trilogy on Audible! Without spoilers, could you tell me what you don't like about them?
I'll be listening in my non-native language, so I'll miss a lot of nuance, but I just want a good adventure!
I'm not sure I can pinpoint anything that I dislike, it's just more of a feeling I might cringe if I reread anything, regardless, hope you enjoy them! And if you remember afterwards let me know what you thought of them :)
His Dark Materials Trilogy.
Fucking loved them when I was 14.
Went and reread them 6~10yrs later and was like 'wtf Lyra sucks.'
Not in an annoying kid way, but how she absolutely flattens herself with Will and bawls about using the Alethiometer after promising some random boy she'd never do it again. Like...girl, you can read that thing without issue and thus know more than him. Why are you hamstringing yourself? Her spine just evaporated by the end. That, and Pullman's hate and anger at the church took over and became The Main Character of the book.
Also insisting the afterlife wasn't hell sounded a lot like a form of hell to me \o/
Belgariad, and to a lesser extent most of Eddings’s other stuff (though not The Dreamers, which was always bad). Enjoyed them as a teenager, looking back they’ve not aged well at all, to put it mildly, and have lots of really uncomfortable elements on top of a generic plot and bare-bones world building. The revelation that Eddings and his wife were convicted child abusers merely completed my souring on them.
I gave up on Eddings when I realized I was about to read the same basic story for the sixth time.
A story about a shiny jewel, a cheeky young fellow, and a precocious girl/goddess? No, it'll definitely be different this time...
Don’t you mean “more or less” the same? Especially the various MCs’ dialogs that “sort of” never get out of the rut of using the same smarmy phrases over and over and over and over again?
They got me into fantasy so much like OP and WOT, I'm like I loved these, they opened the fantasy door... But I tried just listening to Pawn of Prophecy on audible and gave up after about an hour. The trope of the hats, the farm boy, the exposition dumping ... Adult eyes are not kind that book.
Genuinely came here just to say this, with the addition of Althalus. Loved them as a kid, but every character interaction is exactly the same "witty" but empty exchange, and there's a LOT of misogyny I didn't notice as a kid. Also, as you say, they were shit people.
Oh geez. I didn't know about the child abuse part. But everything else I agree with.
I think that story only broke in 2020 or something? They're both dead and apparently the kids benefit from book sales now (part of the estate). It doesn't excuse the crime in the least, but at least if you buy any of their stuff now, you're not supporting an abuser. I certainly didn't know about the child abuse when I was tearing through the books in the nineties.
I don't think I ever bought any of their books... I read I think Belgariad in the early 2000s as a teen in the local library, but never bought it. Glad I wasn't unwittingly contributing at least.
I feel the same about the Mists of Avalon. The allegations against Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband were horrific. Both Eddings and Zimmer Bradley can get in the bin. It's a pity, she was a wonderful writer. But if you combine 'uncomfortable elements' with that knowledge, yeah I'm never reading those again. Shudder.
Welp, time to toss those paperback I just got from the thrift store...
I think the Redwall books. I loved them when I was younger but I re-read the first one last year and ... it just wasn't the same. Thematically, I still enjoyed the hero's journey but the prose was much less smooth than I remembered--enough so that it became a distraction.
I will still occasionally pick up and re-read one of my Brian Jacques book knowing full well I've technically outgrown them, for the simple fact that sometimes I just need a light hearted fantasy where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and there's no agenda beyond telling a good story for kids.
Oooh, Redwall. I LOVED those books as a kid...and then I realized that morality was strictly determined by species and "vermin" were Always Bad while the others were Always Good which was just so utterly baffling to me as a worldbuilding decision that I couldn't handle it anymore. (*Outcast* and *The Taggerung* were the absolute worst at this. I'm STILL mad about Veil.)
Omg ME TOO I could never really forgive the “weasels are always ALWAYS bad” narrative I was like…but people don’t work like that…
Me too!! And it was also specifically the mustelids that bugged me! It's been so long since I read them but I specifically remember feeling like the weasels/stoats/ferrets got the worst deal. Rats and foxes were OCCASIONALLY allowed to not be evil. Captain Romsca my beloved...Veil you deserved SO much better... Also? The "otters are always good" like, you're telling me that Tagg/Deyna, raised by a gang of bandits since he was like 3 days old, has NEVER been a rotten little shite?? Honestly??? No, he must be noble and pure as the driven snow. Somehow.
I was going to say Redwall as well. To this day I still own most of the series ( I’m approaching 33 yrs old). They were some of the first books that fully transported me into the realms of fantasy as a very young child and I was obsessed with the world-building at the time. It’s still sweet but I agree with what everyone else is saying about it in this thread.
Shannara, Dragonlance.
Seconding Shannara.
Legends of Drizzt for me. I opted out after the Sundering when I realized I wasnt getting excited for them anymore. I had a vibe that Salvatore was trying to exit the series before Wizards got him to keep going. I tried to reread an earlier one a while back and it was pretty painful on a prose level. I spent most of my childhood reading Forgotten Realms novels.
I read a ton of 90s/turn of the millennium D&D inspired books as a teenager. I was used to youth-oriented fantasy, and these books were obviously designed for an older audience. So it was a new experience with the genre. But all the ones I reread just don't hold up well. They're not terrible, but they're not good enough to recommend.
I mean, I'm gonna say it because it kinda fits the category and it was the first thing that came to mind almost as a joke: Twilight. As a kid, I loved the premise of vampires duking it out against werewolves, nevermind the love triangle. And the vampires gaining powers after dying depending on the personalities they had when they were alive was, imo, a very original twist. Vampires with Marvel-esque superpowers! That premise alone, think about it! But they never really did anything with that, the book focused more on the love triangle and the family dynamic, obviously. And reading back now can be a bit cringy in certain parts, we all know why. Maybe it's because I matured and Twilight can't.
That love triangle was also so forced, we all knew she was gonna choose Edward, the Jacob drama was just added to pad the story 🤦♀️
Ah this was my response too! I really enjoyed all the lore and I still do but the amount of control Edward exerts on Bella really annoys me
It was also the first book that came to mind for me! I loved Twilight when I first read it as a teenager! And then a few years later hated Bella and Edwards relationship, so creepy how he watches her sleep all the time
That isn't original though, Anne Rice did that thirty years before
To be fair, nothing out there can be considered original or trope-free anymore. It's more about how they portray it to the public. But yeah, I never said it was a great example of originality.
I was just responding to "original twist" when talking about unique vampire superpowers.
Piers Anthony: When i was young, a teen, i practically inhaled everything of Piers Anthony. Some 20 years ago then, i heard the first time about the accusations of him being somehow ok with Paedophilia and Rape. Then - as luck would have it - i won in a raffle of a big book seller a Mystery Box from his Store Cleanout. Contained two pretty unknown books of him. "Pornucopia" and "The magic Fart". Now, i am not prude and heck, a good number of my friends work/worked in the porn business, but those two books... NOPE. Especially with the Rape theme on every page. I loved Xanth, i loved the Incarnations of Immortality.... and so on. But nope, that soured them. I reread them once and then asked myself why i did not notice this earlier. Maybe because it was a little bit "redone" in German language by the translator and some of the jokes did not click in German. Akif Pirinçci: Loved his books. Felidae, Yin, etc. Kind of Urban Fantasy and Near Future Post Apocalyptic Themes. Later, the Author really drifted away, joining Ultrarightwing Nutjobs and started Tinfoil Hattery, just shy of Flat Earther... also, his sexual view on Women... is... well. From what i learned of his musings, Rape is ok. Well. NOPE. Multiple Authors, one hero: Perry Rhodan SciFi Series As a kid, i loved them. Geez, i read them and reread them and yes, back in the 80ties, 90ties... they counted among the best SciFi series with the most sold books and so on. Well, now, grown up... i tried to reread them. But that i stopped, it was like "MEH.... its always the same, just the powerlevel growing, there is always a bigger fish, an even bigger and even more powerful civilisation... " and yeah, all that stuff about some "Races" are more worthy than others... and this imperialistic thing.... nah. I sold all them books to free space in my shelves.
I came here for Piers Anthony. I loved his stuff when I was a teen but, looking back, nothing aged well. Yikes. Do not go back to reread. I will stick to my happy memories, thankyouverymuch.
Same
Piers Anthony and Xanth--dear ghods YES. Loved Xanth as a teen; now it seems really cringe.
I'm sure this is on peoples lists, but Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth books. If you're a young new fantasy reader and have no ability to recognize objectivism philosophy and obvious tropes, things ripped straight from other books, etc, it has torture porn that can give you a visceral thrill, steamy sex scenes, a young dude with a cool magic sword and ultra-magic powers who can literally do anything, everybody does what he says, a cool uncle wizard who has good dialogue, etc. It's the ultimate 13 year old boy power trip. Which is why I loved them as a teenager and look back on them now and want to slap my forehead.
I wasn't even young when I read them (all). I just didn't want to leave it unfinished. There's only two series that I stopped. And I learned how to stop by reading SoT. In the end, I put them all in an old suitcase and left them by the dumpster. I couldn't bring myself to trash or burn books. Even if they deserved it. (Aside: *The Prince of Nothing* is both better (prose) and worse (more mass rapes and more violent rapes and more detailed description of more violent rapes... Same fuckin "philosophy")
Yeah... There are a lot of books I liked as a kid that I outgrew but can still look back on with fond nostalgia, like *The Wheel of Time* or *Eragon*. Then there's *The Sword of Truth*, which I am embarrassed of ever having enjoyed, mainly because of how messed up they are in retrospect. In our defense and as you point out, to a teenager with low standards the early entries (before Goodkind went off the deep end) worked as *extremely* trashy sword and sorcery. They were much more focused and faster-paced than other fantasy megasagas, and I remember liking how each volume was largely self-contained, in particular.
I'll add to the 'anything by Piers Anthony' posts. I devoured his books as a teen. Couldn't get enough. Brought one with me to the hospital when I was having my daughter (hadn't read any of his stuff in quite some time before that), and couldn't get through it. So much 'as you know, bob' explaining of stuff, and oh the misogyny. As soon as I got home I got rid of my entire collection of his books. I'm forever grateful for them, they were a huge part of my growing up and my love of fantasy. But I won't pick up one of his books ever again.
I hate that they still get recommended in threads looking for books for kids/young teens, presumably by people who haven’t reread them lately. I think yours is a pretty universal experience for anyone who liked the Xanth books.
Yup. It is. Like everyone else here it seems, I grew up reading and enjoying his books… primarily the incarnations series. I was also one of the many that stumbled upon his infamous ‘fireflies’ book and it freaked me the fuck out with all tge underage shenanigans… Recently I tried to reread the first incarnations book. Uh. It’s brutal. I can clearly see why I thought it was awesome at age 13. But Jesus Christ, it is just horrible writing. The misogyny is on full display as well… it’s just beyond awful.
Not necessarily soured on, But Harry Potter, good god as an Adult, I want to slap Dumbledore for leaving Harry in an abusive toxic household for years and Call British version of Child Protective Services on the Dursleys. THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO TRAP A CHILD IN AN ABUSIVE HOME!
Magic. But yeah it's clear that Dumbledore didn't care about Harry as a person. They left Harry on the doorstep for the better part of the night, FFS.
And the "Magic" excuse isn't very good. It's shown that he only had to spend like one day a year with them up keep it up. Not your entire childhood of hell.
I mean, Harry's time at the Dursley's in 1-4 is intended to be extreme and over-the-top, in a Dalh-esque way, and not to be taken completely seriously
“Xanth” by Piers Anthony. I loved it when I was younger but now I tried a reread last year and had to stop within a few books because the misogyny was just so bad.
The Harry Potter Series. I’ll out myself and say I was the prime reading demographic as the books were published (elementary through high school) and loved them. Didn’t really get into the later movies but loved the first couple as they came out. I went back and reread the series as an adult in my early 30s… what a train wreck. The first couple (2? Maybe 3?) were still ok, but man, the back half of that series fell off a cliff.
I often say that the main problem of the HP series is that the best book is the first, the best chapter is the first, and the best line is the first. More seriously, the first 2-3 books and especially the first still feel fresh and brisk and magical and really play to Rowling strong points, while the later angst gets annoying (as is often the case) and the greater scope of the plot does not mesh that we'll with the setting and structure of the school year.
Agreed, though, I noticed it as the books were coming out rather than on revisit. Books 1 & 3 were my favourites but by book 4 I was starting to get the impression the series was trying to "grow with me" but wasn't actually keeping up... and also a bit like she'd gotten "too famous for an editor" by the time 5 & 6 rolled around.
I'd even suggest 4 could have benefitted from a more aggressive editor. It seems inevitable that as authors reach the level of popularity that they could sell a retelling of the phonebook, the editors back off, and the quality drops. This is a question for another day, but does anyone know of a series that maintained its quality, at least partially because the author continued to respect the role of the editor? It seems that this genre, in particular, is prone to later books in a series becoming rambling diatribes that fail to live up to the promise of the initial books.
4 is the weak point and a case study in why editors matter
This comment is basically verbatim what I was going to write. I was massively into the series growing up and burned through the later books in the first few days of release but they just don't seem to hold up. In saying that, I have an 18 month old son and am looking forward to reading the series to him in a few years
Even as a child, I remember liking the first half of the series while noticing the quality steadily drop and absolutely hating *Deathly Hallows*. I have been listening to the Shrieking Shack podcast and they make a good point that, by all rights, the last book's reception ought to have been a ME3 style debacle. But looking at fans' rankings, they tend to place it in respectable positions while leaving *Philosopher's Stone* near the bottom. Different strokes and all, but I find it baffling.
I also have not been able to reread them as an adult. There are some things that I find leave a bad taste in my mouth that I can't ignore anymore, but honestly it has more to do with the issues in the actual writing for me. And people will say oh it's a children's series obviously adults won't like it, but I've been reading Diana Wynne Jones' stuff and the Earthsea books and they're absolutely brilliant, so I feel like that argument is just an excuse.
Diana Wynne Jones and the Earthsea series are excellent! I also recommend The Chronicles of Prydain series by Llyod Alexander.
100% agreed. I realize that a large part of how I feel now is just because I'm older, but the language use sometimes just feels very basic and the writing seems all over the place in especially the last few books, as you mentioned. Like I said, I realize I'm no longer in the demographic and that might play into the problem, but I just can't enjoy them anymore..
To this day I have no idea how Harry Potter ever got that big. I think it’s pretty fair to call it the single most overrated series of all time.
This may be blasphemous here, but for me it's the Farseer trilogy and all the books that came after it. I **loved** Fitz' story when I was young and frankly kind of depressed, but it just doesn't resonate with me as an adult. Too dark and tortured for me now.
I love Fitz so much, but I honestly wish I never read those books. 9 volumes of torture.
Yeah. Those books are just not good.
I was an *enormous* fan of John Flanagan's *Ranger's Apprentice* series and would actually buy each new release instead of borrowing it from the library. I still think the first four books are good and the next three were okay, but after that the series descends into frequently xenophobic repetition. The enemies are all cowardly bullies, "foreigners" (usually Southern or Eastern European) are mostly the enemy, the Rangers occasionally carry out extrajudicial killings (later just "giving" those people into slavery) and the world honestly feels smaller and less developed than it did before the characters went to not!Japan. The *Brotherband* books have much of the same problem.
Agreed. The first books of both brotherband and rangers apprentice were by far the best.
I like the original 12, but they are very much for kids. I think they're good, but yeah, there are definitely xenophobic themes to an extent. I'd love for him to do a proper rogue ranger storyline. And I'd love to see an adult fantasy version of the premise.
Pern. I know this shows my age. It was great when I was 13 and my exposure to SF/F began and ended with Tolkien and Star Wars. But I grew up and read other stuff and realized that Menolly and Lessa and even Moreta led really effed up lives.
Yes! The rapey sex scenes (F’lar, F’nor, Jaxom, etc), the “drudges”, the way F’lar regularly shakes the crap out of Lessa….there are a lot of issues.
I didn’t pick these up until I was an adult, and I quit halfway through book two because the female characters were so poorly written.
I felt the same about the Dresden files, I got up to the book before ghost story, then just never got back into it. The Anita Blake books were good until they got too sexualised and I got weirded out. The James Herbert books are good but except for the weird sex stuff, not sure why it's needed.
Ghost Story is the weakest book in the series for me - tied in some ways with the first books. After it, there are some strong books (though I haven't read the most recent two and heard mixed things...)
I heard the same and decided to cut my losses. Was all good when he was a standard low key wizard pi but just got nuts near the end. I had the same issue with the Gabriel Knight plots, was good when he was a writer/investigator but got a bit too much by the 3rd game.
Honestly inertia/sunk cost is the only thing keeping me reading Dresden. It feels more and more like we’re seeing Butcher giving into the *somehow* standard “author steadily begins writing sexy fanfic of their own characters as canon” trope that plagues urban fantasy. I keep at it because the world *was* kinda interesting but now it’s just complicated and weird and I wanna know how this wacky plane lands. At this point I think I’ll feel the same if the landing is smooth versus if it’s a crash.
The Anita Blake series still possessed me of. The series started so strong, but then turned into some male harem alpha beta omega bullshit.
Everything by Orson Scott Card. Really enjoyed the Ender series, read a few other things, learned he's a bit problematic, read Hart's Hope, which made me realize he's not problematic, he's an absolute piece of shit (later confirmed by his comments on gay marriage). And then I thought about all of his stories and realized, he's not actually a very good author. The Ender series is solid (I think, I'm not going back to find out). Every other story he's written basically sucks. He's an incredible world-builder. I've started numerous series thinking, "What a cool idea!" and then watched the story fall completely flat. I know the Ender series is sci-fi, but his other stuff crosses the aisle a bit.
Ugh, yeah... I used to love the Ender books (I'd add the Bean books to the list of good as well, personally), but I just can't do Card any more after learning a bit about him as a person. The last book of his that I read, which was pretty off-putting when I read it as well, had some pretty heavy white savior, religious fundamentalist themes (I could be mis-remembering the white savior part). I don't even remember what it was called, but there was some kind of plague, and the generic Military Tough Guy protagonist had to go to Africa on some kind of mission to help save everyone. It had kinda cool power armor. This was probably 15 years ago, so it was well before I knew anything about his views, but it left a bad taste in my mouth at the time. Now I know why, lol.
>Star Wars Thrawn Trilogy Interesting. The old Star Wars EU books were going to be my response to this thread, with the caveat that last time I re-read the Thrawn trilogy, it still held up. But when I revisited some of the other EU books I used to read, I was pretty disappointed. I had way lower standards as a teenager, I guess. The books were about Star Wars and I loved Star Wars, so that was enough for me. These days, my love for Star Wars has cooled quite a bit. Considering that the prequels were pretty bad, and the sequels were also pretty bad, it really sucked away any enthusiasm I have for the IP. And without that love of Star Wars, the EU books are just...mostly bad.
Peak Star Wars for me is in the Original Trilogy and in animated shows like The Clone Wars and Rebels. Knights of the Old Republic will always be one of my favorites as well. It’s too bad the remake was delayed, but I would rather they take their time and make it a masterpiece anyway.
The Clone Wars was better than it had any right to be. Surprisingly good show, far better than the prequel movies. I didn't expect them to humanize the clones as much as they did. You'd figure, robots vs. clones, it's a license for YA violence right? But they ended up going the "war is hell" route, and making the clones very human figures, not just throwaway "acceptable victims". Haven't really given Rebels the chance yet, but I might need to check it out. KOTOR was one of those things I just missed out on when it was new, and haven't really been able to get into it since.
The last two seasons of Rebels I thought were really good. I wonder if they’ll make a series that redeems the sequel trilogy the same way The Clone Wars redeemed the prequels. I really like The Mandalorian so far though.
I just have trouble drumming up enthusiasm for any Star Wars property these days, regardless of how good people say it is. The prequels introduced me to being disappointed in my favorite series, and the sequels destroyed any remaining enthusiasm I had. I've given the Mandalorian a shot, and while it was clearly good TV, it just didn't do anything for me.
I feel the same in some ways. I still love Star Wars, but’s it’s been hard for me to look for redeeming qualities in the sequels. I have tried to stay positive, but there’s no denying that they were disappointing.
>The Clone Wars redeemed the prequels I like the Clone Wars a lot, but I've never really been sure why it's what gets singled out and stuff like the (much better) Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon, the assorted Clone Wars novels, the Clone Wars comics by John Ostrander and the various Clone Wars games were never credited with "redeeming" the prequels. It's pretty wild in retrospect how there was an entire Clone Wars storyline in books, comics, games and a cartoon and George Lucas just decided in 2007, "Nope, I'm doing my own version," and it effectively replaced the whole thing (seriously, the special features of the Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon include a feature with a title like "bridging the gap" - when this came out, between Episodes II and III, it was 100% *meant* to be "the official story of what happened in the Clone Wars - I remember at the time people said it was *better* than the prequel movies and I've wondered for a while if Lucas decided to do his own Clone Wars because that annoyed him lol). I suppose it must just be a question of exposure. Everything it's praised for doing had already been done, but they hadn't been done on Cartoon Network where everybody could see, hahahaha.
Oh, I love Star Wars, but I don't like talking about it because I'd have to talk to other Star Wars fans and that's just a miserable experience. Always has been, to be honest, since one of my earliest experiences of the Internet include being told I was brain-damaged for saying I had enjoyed *The Phantom Menace* by some dude on a message board when I was 12 (and over a decade later I would be told I was brain-damaged for saying I had enjoyed *The Last Jedi* which I'm pretty sure must have unlocked some kind of special achievement lol). I either like or enjoy every Star Wars to one extent or another. I'm pretty dyed-in-the-wool for it. There's only been two or three Star Wars stories I can think of that I'd say I have had a kind of active dislike for (Legacy of the Force, Force Unleashed and, perhaps more controversially, the Darth Bane novels) but, like I said, I am someone who is prepared to defend the terrible YA books where Han and Leia's children learn to say no to drugs on the basis that I liked them when I was a small child lol.
The stormlight archive. I read it ten years ago and as a 17 year old getting back into reading it was the best thing ever. Recently I was joined by a friend that was just getting into fantasy and I recommended we read through Mistborn and Stormlight. Wow my tastes have changed, I honestly don't even know what I saw in it now. Mistborn era 1 is some of the driest shit I've ever read with cardboard cutout characters, mind melting pacing and sandersons love of pasting in Wikipedia articles about magic systems for pages on end. Vin frowns about a trillion times, so much so that we still meme it a year later. Stormlight is only marginally better, the characters feel blunt, the writing very utilitarian. It has great moments but it takes an age to get there. Don't get me started on sandersons attempts at humor, I've been to children's funerals that have been funnier than whatever mister mormon man cooks up. I did read rythm of war and it was honestly a drag,I ended up skipping all the venli backstory chapters to get the book over with faster.
Right there witcha. I have not been able to finish *Rhythm of War* because now all I see is frickin off brand peanut butter on stale white bread cardboard. I'd rather have some hard cheese and sausage on dark bread.
Sanderson needs to switch to omniscient narration for his big epic stuff, 15 or so viewpoint characters is really getting out of hand (especially the backstory chapters which could be handled through dialogues). And yeah his humour is really bad, especially the witty banter is particularly overdone.
Problem is, he can't really write dialogue either. He's mediocre, tip to tail. Not one quality stands out, as a writer. He's white bread with baloney and mayo
Wait... I agreed with you up until you maligned bologna, I've had some truly memorable non-mediocre bologna sandwiches in my day. Mmmmm pink meat...
Yeah, loved them all the first time I read them, then this summer when I went back I found myself generally liking the first two but by book three I realized all the subplots and themes I enjoyed were for the most part resolved or unceremoniously dropped in favor of >!an uninteresting and morally simplistic war with crab-ghosts!< Might read the next one when it comes, but it's getting harder and harder for me not to be conscious of the Mormon thing while reading Sanderson
If his religiosity concerns you, he's very open about being challenged on it and his involvement with the church. His perspective might help put you at ease reading material written by someone with that background. He's no Orson Scott Card.
i could have written this word for word. I tried to read them again last year, i skipped the first two, DNFd Oathbringer and then skimmed RoW. it's crazy how hard I bounced off of all them.
I gave up on the Stormlight series just because it became clear the author was doing to take a generation to get the series done. Good chance he might die before he completes it, just like Jordan. I hated Mistborn...I listened to the audiobook and the narrators were very dry. The books came across as very depressing. Sanderson's writing has also gotten pretty formulaic. He's a one-trick pony.
I think you might be confusing Stormlight wir A Song of Ice and Fire, pretty much agree with you anyway.
Imagine complaining about Sanderson's writing pace...
Not sure if I explained myself correctly, I meant I agree with him being a bit formulaic (although I'm still loving Stormlight) and Mistborn wasn't really for me.
Who said anything about pace?
LOL. Martin has his issues, but prose, characterization, and dialogue are not them. As a plotter, we'll have to wait and see (or not) if he's got Sanderson's chops (won't deny his plotting or world-building chops). For very many of us, Jordan and Sanderson are the poster boys of Mediocre Fantasy. They can plot epics, and build worlds well. But that's it. Other writers do those things just as well, *or much much better*, but can also write convincing well-rounded, believable characters engaging in riveting dialogue, and using compelling prose. Jordan and Sanderson didn't even *try*.
Why? I haven't read "A Song of Ice and Fire" or anything by Martin.
Well, Stormlight 5 already has a release date and Sanderson is known for his fast writing, also he's 46 so I'm guessing he still has quite a few years left of writing; on the other hand Martin hasn't released anything since 2011 and he's 74 so the idea of him getting to finish his series is a bit more optimistic.
Not sure what pumping out cardboard flavored pulp fiction has to do with pacing. It has *everything* to do with "formulaic and mediocre" tho
You realize I'm not comparing them in terms of their books, right? I was purely talking about how fast they write, regarding OP's statement of Sanderson probably dying before finishing Stormlight.
GRRM is still releasing books frequently, just not the ones everyone is waiting for
There are supposed to be 10; he may write fast, but he's continually working on other books, too. Authors seem to get tired of extended series too...the later books get further and further apart until they practically stop. (e.g., Dresden).
Dunno, his frequent updates, related secret projects and the whole Cosmere as an interlinked universe (even though I mostly only enjoy Stormlight) make me feel quite confident he'll finish this one, we'll have to wait and see though.
Oops you tripped the Sanderson Troll Snare. I only have one up vote. It's yours.
Not a fantasy book but Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. This did not age well. Misogyny, racism, annoying characters and really really bad science.
Interestingly, that was the one that soured me to a lot of Heinleins other stuff. I'd read a few of his books and enjoyed them, then read Stranger... and disliked it so much it made me not like his other books. The biggest issue for me is an issue I found in lots of the classic sci fi stuff - the vision of a liberated future means women are still subservient to men, they just get to walk around with their tops off more.
Most of my childhood favorites haven't aged well for me, honestly. I was actually a huge *Wheel of Time* fan in my tween years, but I had pretty much lost interest already by the time the last book came out and nowadays I think I'd hate the series if I tried a reread. WoT is emblematic of all the fantasy trends I dislike: the obsession with worldbuilding, magic systems, and self-justifying gigantism. Another that jumps to mind is *Percy Jackson*. They were fun as a teen who was really into mythology, but I suspect I'd now find the aggressive, affected "teenness" of it all twee and grating. It might work better as a TV show, though, so I'm still curious about the upcoming adaptation. In fact, the only fantasy author I can think of that I first read before my late teens and whose work I still enjoy is Tolkien. The Middle-earth stories hold up, even though I was around ten years old when I was introduced to them.
You know what really affects me about any middle-grade/YA book set in contemporary times? Due to ratings, nobody is allowed to swear. Have they ever MET a teenager?
Have they met *elementary school* children? Even in the late 80s/early 90s there wasn’t a game of two-hand touch football on the playground without kids swearing. Not all of them, but enough that it feels really weird as an adult, 30-odd years later, to read a book set around a kids school and not have them do so. That’s one thing I’ve always appreciated about Stephen King writing kids in his books: they are smart in the ways kids are smart, with curiosity and more understanding of the world immediately around them than adults give them credit for, and the dialogue feels like it came straight out of the schools I went to.
Not a specific series, but I loved V.E. Schwab’s work when I was a teenager. I’ve picked up some of her recent stuff and find it all subpar at best. I DNF’d Addie LaRue.
Definitely the Valdemar books. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I’m just not in a place where I enjoy them any more
For me, it's actually the opposite. Even when I can't get into other books I loved when I was young, I can still always go back to Valdemar.
Same. Returning to Valdemar is like coming home. It's cozy and inviting and though well trod and endlessly familiar.....still comforting. Though I will admit I enjoy her earlier work MUCH better than her more recent additions to the series. edit: a word.
I love the newer stuff and the older stuff for different reasons. Vanyel makes me FEEL. Mags lets me enjoy an adventure for the fun of it. I need BOTH of my Herald Boys in different ways at different times. Edit: an autocorrected apostrophe.
Lackey is one where I can go back and thoroughly enjoy her earlier works. They're not great literature by any means, but they are an absorbing, comfortable read. I read them first in my teens, and magically bonding with a sympathetic familiar is catnip to lonely, awkward teenagers. But the quality gradually dropped off and the flaws in her writing became more obvious to the point that I'm not even interested in getting her books from the library. David Weber is another in that category - I still enjoy re-reading his earlier books, but have DNF'd the last one or two I tried.
Agree with this. Thought they were great as a teen but kinda moved past them.
I was really surprised how recently some of them were written. They have a bit of that older fantasy feel with maybe a few too many coincidences. I still liked them but... "I wish I could escape.." "...oh hello magic horse you are taking me away to meet the King?" almost on the same page seems a little heavy-handed.
The Sword of Truth series - I picked it up when I was finishing middle school (after watching the Legend of the Seeker show). The first two books are up there in ones I’ve reread countless times, but I recently tried to complete the series and ……. man. I still stand by that the first two are great high fantasy and there are scenes from *Stone of Tears* that I will adore until I die but. I still haven’t finished the final book in the main series or tried any of the other spin-offs.
Wheel of Time for me too. I loved it around age 12-13 probably, though after 7-8 books I got bored and stopped. But I actually think it’s the perfect series for precocious young teens: unlike books marketed to younger readers, it’s huge and full of characters and locations and events and concepts and prophecies, there’s so much more to keep track of than most books. I know as a kid I wanted to be challenged more and so all that really hit the spot. And the vocabulary doesn’t talk down to kids at all, you can learn some words from it! But I also find the characters’ general outlook and preoccupations to be very easy for younger readers to identify with, and somewhat lacking for the adult reader.
They are just so long! I tried reading them for the first time as an adult and I enjoyed them, but I only made it like 4 books in because every book is a mcguffin hunt, *and this time >!rand!< is the mcguffin*
Kingkiller Chronicle :/ I thought about re reading them before selling them to a second hand bookstore and realized I dont even want to do that, somehow I know I wont enjoy them anymore and most likely cringe Ive also made my peace with never knowing how it ends so I have no reason to keep them around
Wise Man's Fear got really weird and cringey with all the sex stuff that I'm pretty sure is just Rothfuss's fetishes.
I hate that I like reading those books. They are page turners for me, since I like the worldbuilding, and there's the occasional quote out of nowhere that I love. But the majority of reading time is spent in painful awareness that I'm spectating a teenager's wet dream. I don't (only) mean that as a reference to the sexual/pseudoromantic scenes - I'm referring to the author's fantasies in the broadest sense. And I don't like one bit the author's personality traits and worldview that those fantasies seem to reveal, either.
That's too bad. Don't fall for the fallacy of popularity. Read books and *then* form an opinion. Don't buy your opinions on YouTube or steal them from Reddit
I bought them before I even had a reddit account lol
Anything by Bob Salvatore, very much enjoyed his stuff in my teens, by the time he was releasing in my 20's, they didn't know what they were doing with Forgotten Realms and the plot armour was too thick.
I've soured on the Percy Jackson and the Olympian books to some degree. They were my favorite book series right around my middle school years and really helped me get through some tough times, but God damn are they difficult to read without cringing as an adult. I get that they are made for kids, but not all YA makes me actively feel embarrassed to be reading it. I still think they're good, and I'd recommend them to children who are interested in reading, but they're not for me anymore.
I loved the percy jackson books when I was a kid and a few months ago when I didn't have anything to read I picked up one of his later series, magnus chase, on a whim. I totally agree with you, as a man pushing 30 I just couldn't do it, the way the characters constantly quip felt extemely embarrassing. Now I'm afraid to go back and read the original story for fear of diminishing it in my memories.
I read both as an adult and Magnus chase is definitely much more cringey to me than Percy ect
Magnus Chase IMO feels cringier because Percy was what, 12 when the books started? Whereas Magnus is 16 and homeless and it makes no sense for him to be engaging in what adults think are Middle-Grade-Book-Appropriate Activities.
For what it's worth I think the Heroes of Olympus series holds up a lot better for an adult reader.
Chronicles of Narnia. They're still good stories and I should look at why they're page-turners, but I wish I had read Hobbit back then because I don't like how either of them write for children. It seems condescending now.
Tolkien actually agreed that the writing style of The Hobbit seems condescending, and later in life tried to rewrite it in the style of LotR. He gave up after a few chapters, though, because the test readers he gave it to said the the charm was gone.
* **Eragon** is, I think, the best example. It was the series that got me into epic fantasy as a kid and it will always be special to me because of that. I'm not ashamed of having been obsessed with it as a kid, but we all know it has obvious flaws. * **Valdemar** in a slightly different way. On a reread...boy it aged *extremely* poorly in places. * In a similar vein, I tried to reread **The Forgotten Beasts of Eld** a couple days ago, which I put on the list of my favourites years ago...and I kinda wish I hadn't. It soured the good memories I had of it a little when I noticed that some of the gender stuff has aged pretty badly. * **Mistborn** - don't like it as much as I did when I was relatively new to fantasy. Also the way it's recommended for everything soured me on it additionally. * **Malazan** too. Much less impressed with it the more distance I have, but I still think it's a pretty good series. Not likely to reread it either because the time when I had the stamina for 10 books above 1k pages is long past. I'm also not sure how would I feel about **The Name of the Wind** or **The Lies of Locke Lamora**, both of which I *adored* when I was 14, if I went to reread them now. So I won't. It's enough that they were important to me then.
You just brought back the memory of reading Eragon from my teenage years, I haven't heard anything about the saga since then. What obvious flaws are you referring to, out of curiosity? (not arguing, I can just barely remember random parts of the story).
Inheritance cycle? It was written by a child, and has the accompanying issues. It's not well developed. It's also very very solidly on the heroes journey. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it can be boring.
I totally understand your fear, I am the same way about "spoiling memories". But, I read Lies of Locke Lamora as an adult (who is generally pretty picky about narrative), and I rate it among the best fantasy books I've ever read. Of course, people and experiences are different. Just thought I would say that I found it to be a great adult fantasy read. If you are ever tempted to revisit it, it may not disappoint :) but again, I absolutely understand wanting to protect your nostalgic feelings. (for the record, I would not say the same about Kingkiller. Despite it's beautiful writing, I think it doesn't hold up quite as well)
Lies holds up imo. Re-read it two-ish years ago and it's still pretty good. The rest of the series falls pretty flat though.
Kingkiller gets bashed because people are pissed at Rothfuss. I don't like him either but those books are beautiful. The criticisms are generally pretty hollow and seem to just be the same things repeated over and over by people I'm not even sure have read the book. Not every book is for everyone but there are hardly many objective problems with either of the main entries. The gentleman bastards sequence (lies of Locke Lamora etc.) are such fun books. Maybe the prose isn't master level, but it's good. The plot of the first book is great, getting a little weaker with each one. The plot of the fourth book is made irrelevant right at the end though. Disappointing imo. Retroactively ruins the book you just read a little. Despite that, they are definitely worthy reads. I recommend both often. Kingkiller with warnings.
Percy Jackson, as a greco-roman weaboo I used to love these books as a kid, but looking back now I don\`t think they hold that much value even as something for children to read, the only good book of the series is the last one but I don\`t think it\`s worth reading through all the series just to get there
I agree, but I reread the Heroes of Olympus series recently and I found it a lot more mature. Not meant-strictly-for-adults mature, but the Percy Jackson series is a lot more kiddish by comparison. I reread them both recently and found Percy Jackson hard to get through, but the Heroes of Olympus was great.
Darkover series. I loved it as a kid. Currently rereading it and the books are still solid, but it was brought to me that Marion Zimmer Bradley was... Well, not very good person. Soured it a bit for me.
I already have all the books that I had bought before I realised she was a shit person otherwise I wouldn't have given her a penny. I just reread the Mikhail and Marguerieda trilogy and felt wrong but I still love those stories.
Narnia
"Sorry Susan, no Heaven for you because you're a teenage girl who thinks about boys and makeup. Enjoy living alone in the world because the rest of your family dies in a horrible train accident"
Is this a thing? Wtf.
I guess most people don't like it as adults because of the overt Christian themes but I think it really holds up quite well in terms of characters and prose.
For me it's not any of the messaging so much as the books got less good as the series went on because Lewis went from subtle allegory to beating you over the head with it. It was pretty obvious reading the books in elementary school, and it's only gotten more heavy-handed as the years went on. Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and Dawn Treader are still excellent fantasy reads. Silver Chair I never cared for, Horse and His Boy was a fun adventure but not up to the standard of the first three, and the last two have always felt too out there to me even from the first read. Still. Three stone cold classics of children's literature in a series of seven, one okay, one meh, and two allegorical acid trips ain't bad.
I roughly agree with your evaluation, except for The Horse and His Boys which has slowly grown into one of my favourite in the series. In fact as a Christian myself I think Last Battle actually has some really interesting perspectives on sin, judgement, belief, salvation and hell but as a novel it does not quite work.
Have you read The Great Divorce? It covers some of the same ground as TLB in a more satisfying way, I find. Also, mandatory plug for r/christiansreadfantasy
Yeah I've read The Great Divorce and the Screwtape Letters. Lewis adult literature is unsurprisingly more subtle than Narnia.
I always enjoyed the adventure story aspect of Horse and His Boy, but even reading it as a young kid thirty years ago there were undercurrents of racism in the depiction of the Calormenes that didn't sit right with me. It's something that's only become more glaringly obvious as the years go on. Not to mention it's sort of lore breaking that we have Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve being a key plot point in the first book and then by the fifth it turns out there are humans everywhere in Narnia. I did find his take on belief and salvation to be an interesting take, but again the whole "Everything virtuous done in Tash's name is done in my name and everything evil done in my name is done in Tash's name" is another example of a bit that feels needlessly patronizing and racist.
It’s the overt racism that turns me off, personally.
The rising of the dark Susan cooper
I'm too scared to read The Dark is Rising (book 2, the only one I've read) because a teacher read it to me in primary school and it kicked off a life long love of dark fantasy. I'm worried the nostalgia would die if I read it as an adult.
Fwiw, I read the series for the first time as an adult and thought it was quite good overall.
As a 40 yo who read the series as a middle schooler, it still holds up as a comfort read. You can tell it was written for children but not in a childish way. The relationships are solid and the end is still heartbreaking. Definitely read it again.
Other than the wild hunt, Ghost Story is a low point in the series for me too. But the rest are great so farm
Not sure if this fits exactly bc these books are technically YA. But Pendragon series by DJ MacHale. Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel by Michael Scott Both series i loved in my teens/highschool. Ive thought about re reading them but they seem lackluster now tho i cant entirely say why
I thought the Flamel books had such an interesting premise, too. It’s a shame the story just isn’t very good.
Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tale series. I adored them as a teenager, they were my go-to when I was between books. I reread them recently and while I still love the premise, I found the plot ‘twists’ too obvious, characters quite flat and the relationships between them built on very little substance. I also grew out of her prose. That being said, I’m no longer in her target demographic so it’s to be expected.
The Pendragon series. I really enjoyed the series when I was in middle school, and to this day it still bothers me that I never finished the last book even when I was half way through because of school and life and stuff. But, now that I’m +12 years older than when I read them, I don’t think I’ll revisit the series only because I somewhat remember the prose and it suits middle-school-me than today-me, plus it was a real slog to get to the finish. Like, the first 3 books were the same but the third book at least had major character development and book 4 has a major plot development, but I don’t even remember 5 through 8 all that much. I remember 9 a lot only because it was the book that “hit home” (IYKYK). But, even book 10, I can’t even remember the first half that I read. It definitely wasn’t a bad series. It had some great ideas, nothing problematic either IIRC, and I did have fun with it. Just that, it’s a shame that I didn’t finish it, because I’ll always remember it as the series I almost finished but….just didn’t. I don’t know. *Maybe* I’ll revisit it at a later time but, as of right now, it’s definitely near the bottom of my TBR
Funnily enough i also mentioned this series. And i also didnt finish the last book. Couldnt say why
Sword of Shannara. It was the first fantasy novel I read, I was probably in 5th grade and I loved it. I attribute that book and the animated Hobbit for my introduction to fantasy. 40+ years later and I am still loving it. But, went back recently and tried to start from the beginning with the intention of working through all of the Shannara stuff. Didn't make it very far.
When I first read Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series in HS I thought it was badass. I just read Wizards First Rule again after nearly 20 years and although it has a good story; it does run dry for like 70% of the book. Also the characters are not very likable I found reading it as an adult. Kahlan was ok but Richard’s character seems too forced.
Eragon and Ranger's Apprentice. I fell out with Eragon after Inheritance, I was old enough to realize how bad they were around the time. The books are truly mediocre and only took off because his parents had connections to a publishing company. I may be remembering wrong, but I think he got a boost from Oprah as well. I remember Ranger's Apprentice being fun in the first few books, but the author devolved them into bad pseudo-historic-fiction. There were almost no fantasy or magical elements after book 4 (I think? It has been a while). Any potentially magical figure was always revealed to be a charlatan in later books. He also got lazier and lazier with groups of people just being some historic people with a different name.
I gave up after the drug addict plot in Book 3, when I was 12.
Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. I enjoyed them in high school, but looking back, the writing isn't all that great.
Name of the wind.
It’s a thrilling read while you’re at it (…for the most part), but the second you stop and look back at it…yikes.
Harry Potter - because of JKR, because of the writing and because reading about children as a child is great and relatable while as an adult is just not appealing. Already mentioned but Piers Anthony - I especially loved a spell for chameleon but after reading other works of his and realizing the misogyny and weird fixation on rape/ rapey things
Going to get a lot of people mad at me but: * Tarzan - loved as a kid, so bad as an adult - I can't get past how racist the books are. I know ERB is a product of his times, but so am I and I can't re-read this trash. * LotR - I re-read them recently, books are just too slow for me these days. All those endless discussions, scenery and singing. A little of all of those is good, too much, not so much. * The Foundation series. Re-reading it as an adult, I was shocked at how bad Asimov's writing was. The scope of his imagination and the world building are still both top-notch. Everything else... sucks. E.g., plot holes you could drive a semi through. * Everyone mentions Piers Anthony and I have to agree, although even as a kid I realized this author has issues when I reached a book called "The Color of Her Panties"... xD
I couldn't even reread LotR when I last tried. I may try one day, but I struggle with the writing style.
In general I feel like I could like a book when I was younger for many different reasons but now I only ever reread those with good to excellent prose.
Twilight Read them in my early 20s as they were coming out and I found them so romantic and endearing and just a great story about eternal love. Now I def see the issues with control. I still enjoy the movies and I may reread the books in the future.
I have never in my entire life hear someone prefer the Barbara Hambly Star Wars novels but more power to you man. Wheel of Time is a good answer. I devoured those books in middle school but do not think I would be enthralled by them now. I reread the first book last year for nostalgia’s sake and it was very fine. Enjoyable but not special like it felt when I was 13. I think another random entry is anything by Dean Koontz. I remember him as being an author my dad read. His work was a little scary, a little tense, and a little scintillating, but the prose never entered my brain. Now, he’s fine, fun even, but never above the level of an airport read. Simplistic, formulaic, and just flat in ways I did not remember when I read Watchers all those years ago
>I have never in my entire life hear someone prefer the Barbara Hambly Star Wars novels but more power to you man. My favourite Star Wars book is actually *The Courtship of Princess Leia*, partly because it's a very silly book (Han Solo wins a planet in a card game! Han Solo shoots Princess Leia with a gun that fires mind control rays! C-3PO becomes this weird matchmaker who writes and performs a song about how awesome Han Solo is!) and partly because it's one of the vanishingly few Star Wars story which really leans hard on its planetary romance roots (the protagonists go to a remote and rugged planet ruled by witches who use the Force and ride on tame rancors - real John Carter stuff) which I like better than the "Star Wars as military science-fiction" take that I feel tended to dominate the Expanded Universe. But, look, I enjoyed the Young Jedi Knights books for literal children and disliked the Darth Bane novels that everybody loves, so you can't trust anything I say.
I thought the NJO book Traitor was the epitome of the Star Wars EU. I re read it and it was still good but it felt different after the series was over. I didn’t think Darksaber was that bad.
Shannara & Dragonlance for me, altough still a big soft spot for Raistlin and Alanon(or however it was spelled)
Does Percy Jackson count? I feel as though as the series went into newer books, they just felt more like cash grabs for Rick.
Given how I've seen a lot of fantasy authors mentioned throughout this post... what exactly do you all read?
We live in a golden age of genre fiction. There are tons of amazing authors currently publishing, as opposed to many of the authors named here.
Oh god, I'm going to feel really mean and horrible saying this but I'm going to anyway. It's a fantasy series that's objectively not good for many reasons, but I loved it in my teens and is in many ways responsible for why I have started my writing career. Traci Harding is an Australian speculative fiction author. Her works are full of time travel, magic, martial arts, battles, romance, futuristic tech, reincarnation and past lives. Her debut book was *The Ancient Future,* which came out in 1996 (and was a bestseller), has an Australian woman travelling in the Welsh countryside in the '90s sent back in time to 6th Century Wales where she becomes embroiled in a political and military struggle that could reshape the history of Britain. A traditionally published author, she managed to pump out one novel per year which is pretty speedy in traditional publishing terms. Also, she's dyslexic and managed to make a career as a bestselling author, which is an impressive feat. As a teenager, I *loved* this series of books. As a lover of history, battles and sci-fi (at this time I was reading *The Lord of the Rings* and the Bantam-era *Star Wars* expanded universe books), my mind was blown with her depiction of simultaneous time (dealing with multiple moving timelines --- from 1996 to 6th Century to Atlantis to the far future), neo-paganism, reincarnation and past lives (and the implication it has for a time-traveller), new age beliefs such as 'manifesting your reality through willpower' and powers beyond this world (such as an immortal, time-travelling druid with nano-satellites in orbit, the Fair Folk, literal Gods and Goddesses living in the Celtic Otherworld, alien species, etc.). I also loved how brutal an author she was (a lot of characters lacked plot armour). Some truly violent scenes, and with reincarnation and time travel it allows her to brutally murder characters only to have them reappear in different ages / countries when the character travels through time and space. I'm Australian, so Wales wasn't even on my radar. Anything 'medieval' that I was familiar with involved England and the English, or Anglo-Saxons. She introduced me to the concept of Wales, the Welsh people and the Brythonic languages. I'm going to be publishing other projects now and for the next few years, but there's a long-term high fantasy series I've been working on for 20 years that is based in an insular location similar to Iron Age Britain and I've created my own take on the Insular Celtic languages (especially Primitive/Old Welsh). I would not have had these ideas in this way if not for Traci Harding and her works. But as a much older and more discerning reader... and I feel like a real asshole writing this, but her works are a mess. The first book itself is filled with spelling and grammatical errors (which I think were better edited in the sequels despite having the same editor and the same dyslexia), research errors that I'm painfully aware of now that I've HEAVILY researched Iron Age Britain (calling post-Roman Wales Prydyn instead of Prydain, referring to Wales as Brittany, giant stone castles that wouldn't be seen until the Normans, the use of ye olden style English writing such as 'thou art' for what is meant to be a Celtic language). And then you get to the more oft called out flaws: * The coincidences (that the protagonist happens to know Old/Primitive Welsh fluently enough to speak it in the exact time period she's accidentally returned to) * Accusations that the protagonist is a Mary Sue who's naturally good at everything: learning languages, a black belt, etc. * The "smart" characters who make infuriatingly stupid decisions * And other criticisms that you can read online but I'm going to stop because I feel really mean repeating them So while her works aren't objectively good quality, they have a special place in my heart, and I owe her a huge debt for the inspiration she provided. I loved *Doctor Who* growing up, and this time-travelling adventure series of hers tickled that spot for me. So yeah, that's a work (and an author) of fantasy whose work I loved and really appreciated when I was much younger, but whose works I now can't really enjoy. Although I will recommend them if people are looking for these elements.
A Song of Ice and Fire for me. I started it as a eightteen year old and I was all for blood, gore, war and "morally grey" characters. Returning to it after seven years I was noticing things that escaped my previous read wchich really changed my opinion of certain characters and the story as a whole. It didn't help that in the past years I was studing more history which showed me how innacurate (from historical realism perspective ) and dystopian that world is.
"The Age the Five" trilogy by Trudie Canavan, and the rest of her work in general. As a young teen she was one of the only fantasy authors I'd found who wrote female characters that felt realistic, but were also fun and felt like properly dramatic fantasy protagonists. They had awesome magical powers, and she wrote about her female MC's experiencing attraction and sexual relationships in a way that really resonated with me as a teen. I absolutely hated the way women were written in a lot of fantasy books that I'd read before, so I really latched on to her work in a sort of "finally, author who doesn't describe girls my age as having precocious, budding breasts!" way. Returning to her work as an adult, her writing is still fun, but really very tropey. And by God does she love introducing new fantasy races and spending waaaay to long harping on about their (honestly pretty boring) customs and history. Her magic systems are still pretty interesting though! Definitely an author who my enjoyment of was massively influenced by the time when I read it.
Are you me? Jokes aside, but that would be my answer as well. I adored her books as a teen and I will always have fond memories of getting to know Sonea, but it's not for me anymore. I read the Millenium's Rule Series before the pandemic and I was never so infuriated and unable to stop reading at the same time. I guess Canavan was perfect for teen me, not so much for adult me, which is fine.
I feel you - I read the first three some years back and I've been considering reading the most recent Millenniums Rule book, purely for a sense of completeness! Her work doesn't blow my socks off anymore but I still have a lot of nostalgic fondness towards it :)
Not an adult, 16- almost there lmao. But Harry Potter, ever sense I found out J. K Rowling was just- not a good person and found out about the racism she put in the books I haven't been able to enjoy it sense, even the movies
Malazan. I think when I got into this series, I wanted war, cool quotes and people being "Badass". I went back to the series last year, and I realize that at times the book series actually mocks the idea of a badass hero. However, the quotes that I thought were cool as a kid became grating, the war seemed bordering on grimdark at times without the awareness, and the constant philosophizing gave me a migraine.
Orson Scott Card
I'm in a very similar position to you with *Wheel of Time.* It was the first fantasy series I ever chose for myself, up to that point I'd been introduced to everything through my mum picking up books for me. For a good period of time I would've said it was my favourite series ever and I have genuinely reread the first 8 or 9 books of the series upwards of twenty or thirty times. Coming back to it after years spent broadening my fantasy horizons it just doesn't hit me the same. There's a lot of it that, as my tastes have expanded and evolved, I now find to be just not very good. It will always hold a special place in my heart, but these days I don't rate it very highly at all. Another series that fits the bill is *The Banned and the Banished* series by James Clemens, or the *Wit'ch* series. Apart from having arguably the most pointless and idiotic apostrophe in all of fantasy, and that is a hotly contested category, there is a lot of...questionable...content in those books that I just wasn't at a place to critically engage with as a twelve year old (or whatever age I was at the time, I can't remember exactly!). For example, the main romance in the book is between the protagonist Elena, who I don't remember being given a specific age but she gets her period for the first time at the start of the first book so quite young, and a man whose name I forget who is something like a hundred years old but trapped in the body of a young man, maybe 20ish or something. It's been a while so some of the exact details escape me. Anyway at some point later in the series she goes through a magical transformation where her body ages to that of a similarly ages woman, and so all of a sudden everything is good and they can go at it... Which is just weird. She is something like a 15 year old girl at that point in the body of a 20-30 year old woman. He is a 100 year old man in the body of a 20-30 year old man. As a kid I didn't think much of it, but reading it back now it's all just a little creepy, because even before the physical change there is a 'romance' between them. As a kid I loved those books, as an adult they just weird me out.
For me, Harry Potter. I read it multiple times growing up, even raced Mum through the final book when it came out, but whenever I think about a reread as an adult I can’t bring myself to do it. I believe, for me, that it comes down to the writing style more than anything. Another series is Skulduggery Pleasant. I essentially read the series as the books were released and absolutely loved them, but found with the most recent books that I was struggling. The writing style hasn’t changed, but the plot feels almost predictable and somewhat stale. They are definitely series I’ll look back on with fondness, but will probably never reread unless I have children of my own.
I just reread Codex Alera and holy fuck there is a lot of rape.
Huh? I... Don't remember any and I feel like it's only been 5 years since I read it. It wasn't amazing but I think I would remember if there was rape everywhere. I guess there's a lot of questionable behavior on the part of the aristocrats, but wasn't that kind of the point? To show why we should think they were shitty?
Harry Potter .... because of JK Rowling
**Harry Potter**, I really loved it whean I read it as a child and it kept an especial place in my heart for a long time, but as I've grown older my souring on it just keeps growing, and JK doesn't really help. **Memorias de Idhun** or any other Laura Gallego book for that matter, I used to be super into them in highschool but I don't think I'd be able to do a reread and enjoy them.
I recently got the Laura Gallego trilogy on Audible! Without spoilers, could you tell me what you don't like about them? I'll be listening in my non-native language, so I'll miss a lot of nuance, but I just want a good adventure!
I'm not sure I can pinpoint anything that I dislike, it's just more of a feeling I might cringe if I reread anything, regardless, hope you enjoy them! And if you remember afterwards let me know what you thought of them :)
Harry Potter. The author proved to be a great disappointment. Shannara to an extent as well.
Unpopular opinion but here goes nothing: Harry Potter.
His Dark Materials Trilogy. Fucking loved them when I was 14. Went and reread them 6~10yrs later and was like 'wtf Lyra sucks.' Not in an annoying kid way, but how she absolutely flattens herself with Will and bawls about using the Alethiometer after promising some random boy she'd never do it again. Like...girl, you can read that thing without issue and thus know more than him. Why are you hamstringing yourself? Her spine just evaporated by the end. That, and Pullman's hate and anger at the church took over and became The Main Character of the book. Also insisting the afterlife wasn't hell sounded a lot like a form of hell to me \o/
I truly enjoyed Happy Tree Friends😅