What sequel has been the biggest dissapointment to you?

For me that would be Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

I read Dune in the early 70's Lost alot of sleep and got writen up twice for reading on watch (I was in the Navy at the time),a buddy said "you like that one you should try the sequel" and handed me DM. I struggled through about 1/3 of it . Couldn't get into it. Have tried several times since then and still no go. Which is a shame because I like most of FH work.

The Kevin J Anderson sequels certainly - they're dreadful. And the prequels. But I'd rate Dune Messiah as good as Dune. In fact, I think the later Dune books are better-written than the first one.

Actually, on reflection, it's wrong to consider Dune Messiah a sequel, as all three books were conceived as one story. And yes, while I can see how it would disappoint someone expecting something like Dune, I think you have treat all three as one.

I keep an open mind, I might try it again. Like I said I enjoy most of Frank Herberts work.

I liked the Dune "trilogy" (Dune/Messiah/Children), but Chapterhouse Dune and Heretics of Dune were not nearly as good.

"trilogy" or not, the first books that came to mind when I read the first post were the books after Dune. I don't suppose Dune Messiah was the worst 2nd book ever, but I reread Dune not long ago and it was still fresh in my mind. In fact I still can't think of sequel that disappointed me more....

Dune Messiah was not nearly as good as Dune, and in fact all the other books in the series were less successful novels than the original. The Dune universe of the first book is much richer and more finely drawn, and the characters are more interesting than the ones introduced in subsequent books (many of whom were merely clones of the originals).

I also don't think it is accurate to say that "all three books were conceived as one story." Herbert had no intention of writing any sequels when he finished Dune, so he certainly didn't have Dune Messiah ('69) or Children of Dune ('76) in mind while writing Dune in '65. The novels were not conceived of as a single story at all, but three separate novels written 4 and 7 years apart. The plots of the novels are fairly self-contained and are not intertwined to any great degree. 12 years have elapsed between Dune and Dune Messiah, and 9 years between Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. The back story provided in Dune is not necessary to follow the conspiracy plot in Dune Messiah and neither of these novels is required reading to follow the adventures of Leto and Ghanima in Children of Dune. Certainly the back story is helpful, as in every series, but I think it is obvious Herbert went through great pains to make the novels stand on their own.

Yes, Dune has been the most successful of the Dune books, but that doesn't necessarily make it the best. The universe and cast are constant - pretty much - throughout the first three. Only Hayt is a clone in the Dune books written by Frank Herbert, and he's a clone of Duncan Idaho.

According to Herbert himself, the books were conceived as one long novel: "I conceived of a long novel, the whole trilogy as one book about the messianic convulsions that periodically overtake us ... This grows from my theory that superheroes are disastrous for mankind, that even if we find a real hero (whatever that may be), eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that comes into being around such a leader."

Message edited by its author, May 5, 2009, 10:28am.

Although, The Unforsaken Hiero by Sterling Lanier was good, I didn't think it was as good as Hiero's Journey. The end seemed a bit rushed.

Ira Levin's Son of Rosemary -- the sequel to Rosemary's Baby -- was a grave disappointment.

Many people were confused and disappointed by Suzette Haden Elgin's abandonment, in the third book (Earthsong), of the central premise underlying the first two books in the series (Native Tongue, The Judas Rose) -- to such an extent that she announced recently that she was going to do a do-over / additional sequel.

Message edited by its author, May 5, 2009, 12:44pm.

When I said "the other books in the series were less successful novels than the original," I wasn't referring to commercial success (as you seem to have implied), I was referring to their literary merit as novels. I think Foucault's Pendulum is a more successful novel than the Da Vinci Code, for example, even though the latter is much more commercially successful and popular than the former.

If Herbert had written the long novel he originally conceived in '65, I don't think it would have resulted in the exact same stories that it eventually took him 11 years to complete, do you? The Dune Genesis article from which you quote indicates that Herbert had always thought of Dune as part of a series about "messianic convulsions", but I doubt very much that he was implying that he had the detailed plots of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune all worked out from the very beginning. Do you think, for example, that Herbert knew that one of these "messianic convulsions" was going to involve the son of Muad'Dib being transformed into a human-sandworm hybrid when he was writing Dune? If so, why didn't he include some kind of foreshadowing of it, as he did with the Jihad that occurred between Dune and Dune Messiah? There were plenty of spice-induced prescient visions in Dune to slip in a clue or two about Herbert's then already complete trilogy, right?

I simply disagree with your opinions that "Dune Messiah as good as Dune" and "you have treat all three as one." I'm not trying to dissuade you, and I respect your viewpoint, I just happen to disagree with both statements. I do think that all the Dune books are good, but none of them surpass Dune, in my opinion, which I also think stands very well on it own.

The sequels to Rendezvous with Rama (Rama II, THe Garden of Rama, and Rama Revealed) had the twin failings of being badly written and turning the entire premise of the original on its head.

I'll spoil it for everyone: God did it.

Message edited by its author, May 5, 2009, 12:54pm.

#11 You originally claimed that Herbert had no intention of writing any sequels, yet FH had said himself that the three books were to him one long novel. Perhaps he didn't have detailed plots when he started - we'll never know because HLP are unlikely to ever publish his notes. So any discussion necessarily has to be based on what he actually did publish, and not assumptions. But, IIRC, there's a reference in Dune to a path Paul could have taken but refused to, and the later implication is that Leto took that path.

I have to agree that Dune Messiah and Rama II were pretty poor compared to their predecessors. I'd also add Ringworld Engineers, and especially Ringworld Throne by Niven.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card definitely ranks in my MAJOR disappointment file.

Yeah, Speaker for the Dead was a huge disappointment for me as well. And I remember Orson Scott Card saying something about only writing Ender's Game in order to set up Speaker for the Dead.

# 12: StormRaven

The sequels to Rendezvous with Rama --- had the twin failings of being badly written and turning the entire premise of the original on its head.
I'll spoil it for everyone: God did it.

Right on!

16> That's odd. I had read something about him writing Ender's Game, the short story or novella, then writing the longer Ender's Game book as a set up for a series, because of publisher's preasure, but I didn't recall the original story itself as being only written to set up future work.

Then again, I've only read Ender's Game in that series.

(I'm probably confusing Ender's Game with some other book that was a short story first (like Blood Music, not story but story behind writing; though Music was by Greg Bear, and I do not recall sequeals to it).

Dune & Ender's Game sequels.
I barely got through Ender's Game and after reading the next book never read any more of Mr. Cards novels. His novels fail to transcend the "young adult/adult" genres as Heinlein's did - at least for me. I thought Card's novels needed editing for length, I found myself scanning some large sections that I found neither engrossing or necessary for the development of the story IMOHO.

Quite the opposite for the Dune trilogy. I was entranced by the first novel and once I started reading never even considered its length, just disappointed when it was over. The sequels were more of the same except the incredible action scenes, and character developement that typified the first two novels of seemed diminished in Dune Messiah if my memory serves.

Message edited by its author, May 5, 2009, 9:22pm.

>15 and 16: I'm really glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who disliked Speaker for the Dead. I really loved Ender's Game and have tried to plow through Speaker for the Dead several times, but have never been successful. It's just so darn *boring*!

I agree about Speaker for the Dead but things pick up when Bean becomes the focus in the latter books in the series.

I didn't care for the sequels to Ender's Game, but I loved the sequels to Rendezvous with Rama.

They're less well-known, but I thought Warren Norwood's "Windhover Tapes" series displayed a very odd progression. The first two, An Image of Voices and Flexing the Warp, were pretty good space adventures with a protagonist who'd had his mind wiped and was having terrible difficulties escaping from the consequences of actions he couldn't remember. Then the third book, Fize of the Gabriel Ratchets, went back in time and explained everything. Totally undermined the premise of the series. (Very stupid title, too.)

Jumper by Steven Gould was an excellent book for a variety of reasons - depth and variety of ideas, interesting and well-fleshed out characters, and interesting moral questions. In Reflex, Gould decided that what everyone liked about Jumper was a hero that fights others while jaunting everywhere.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Oh, I'll mention Forever Free here, too. You read the blurb, thinking "wow, won't this be a challenging concept?" A group of people going forward hundreds of thousands of years through time, seeing what will happen, and possibly starting a new civilisation after the old one has completely failed. Then the book decides halfway though that no, you won't find out what will happen if this concept occurs. You'll get one of the poorest-ever Deus Ex Machinas written instead that negates this very idea.

#12
I completely agree. What was so great about Rendezvous with Rama was the mysterious nature of the artefact that the characters were presented with. What did it do? Who made it? Where did it come from? Where is it going? The sequels decided to answer this in the most tedious manner possible, combined with gratuitous and poorly-segued references to Shakespeare.

Message edited by its author, May 6, 2009, 8:08am.

24: rojse
I agree with you on Rendezvous with Rama. Some books shouldn't have sequels.
I kept getting mad at myself reading each new installment. It was like watching a train wreck, or being a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
Sometimes the mystery is better that knowing.

I would have to research what other sequels really let me down, but I can still recall clearly after over 30 years (maybe 40 years exactly, depending on when in 1969 it came out) the great disappointment I felt when I read Dune Messiah. Granted, I was but a pup at the time, and I've not reread any in the series for a long time (I only got the first 4), so my opinion could be different today. Still, definitely a strong visceral reaction to recall so clearly after all this time.

I agree about the sequels to Rendezvous With Rama, or at the very least, Rama II. I bought RWR, Rama II and Rama Revealed (the fourth one) several years ago, thinking that I'd pick up a copy of Garden of Rama after I finished the second one. I have attempted several times to read Rama II, and have not gotten more than 100-150 pages into it. It's been a few years since I attempted it, but I seem to remember it being quite boring, not engagingly written, and full of religious rambling.

I still love the original, though.

27: Yeah, I began rolling my eyes when the authors started rambling about "Chrislam".

My memory of Dune was that it was fantastic, then I learned afterwards of Mohammed, and saw that Herbert had taken from that tale. (For the briefest moment it was wow, thats the story of Paul Atrides... No wait of course the author stole from the history of Islam...)

Then, having liked Dune, I went and read the next two. Oh what a chore. They did not hold up and then with the large gap between those and the more modern releases, there was no desire to read anything else in the series.

Dune was complete. It didn't need any sequels.

Speaking of Clarke:

The sequels to 2001. Bleagh.

Although...

SPOILER WARNING

...the idea of turning Jupiter into a second sun is pretty cool.

Certainly way up on my list is the Riverworld series, at least by the time I finished The Magic Labyrinth. Never had the desire to read The Gods of Riverworld.

Hi folks, relatively new here so I thought I should contribute. Worst sequels? I was let down by the sequel(s) to The Forever War. The first book conjured an amazing atmosphere - a mixture of Biloxi Blues, Saving Private Ryan and War of the Worlds. The characters retain their humanity throughout. The sequel introduces more interesting ideas, but it seems to lose it's momentum IMO and lacks the coherence of the first.

I also felt that Absolution Gap was a poor addition to Alastair Reynolds otherwise highly enjoyable and inventive series.

>31
Good example. With a great concept like that, how could you go wrong? But Farmer did. I think that the basic idea carried the first novel. After that, maybe the best thing about it was just going off on your own and imagining the possibilities. I never made it through the second book, iirc.

To my mind the worst sequel I've ever read, was Larry Niven's appalling, dreadful, frightful, ghastly, horrendous The Ringworld Throne - the constant (and I mean obsessively CONSTANT) references to rishathra (inter-species sex for diplomatic purposes), and the boring and generally pointless stories of the secondary characters, made this possibly the worst book I've read in any genre.

> 30

Actually, I recall rather liking 2010. I think the parts where it describes the lifeforms on Jupiter's moons and in Jupiter's atmosphere were especially good.

2061 was pretty unremarkable, no doubt. And I never made it past that.

#32 I liked Absolution Gap. It was better than Redemption Ark, although perhaps disappointing when compared to Chasm City.

#31: mkjones "Never had the desire to read The Gods of Riverworld."

You've missed nothing worth having, though I thought it wasn't quite as bad as some of the earlier sequels.

37> The worst part is that I've still got a copy of Gods of Riverworld that I've held on for many, many years either "for completeness" or the off chance that I'll obtain a brain injury and decide that, yes, this looks like a worthwhile book to pick up next.

So, how about a vote for series that you've given up on after reading book N, yet still have book N+1 sitting around...

I'm puzzled by how people disliked Speaker For the Dead and subsequent books. I thought they were in a completely different league to Ender's Game so it's like comparing apples to oranges.
Or is it because Speaker was so different to Ender's Game that it didn't faintly fulfill readers' expectations?

I actually liked Speaker for the Dead - exterminating the buggers may have been a mistake, Ender's quest for redemption, the piggies, etc. was all very interesting. I also liked Ender's Shadow, from Bean's point of view.

Unfortunately, Xenocide and Children of the Mind were not at the level of the others.

Never read Ender's Game, or its sequels; but I do recall trying one of the Gentry Lee sequels to Rendezvous with Rama and being supremely unimpressed. don't think I got beyond the first of the sequels, in fact.

The sequels to Gateway were, IIRC, also of declining quality.

Message edited by its author, May 8, 2009, 11:33am.

I liked the Dune sequels. I thought they asked interesting questions about what happens when you get everything you want and can predict the future. But then again, I was always the kid who wanted know what happened after the heros rode off into the sunset.

I read Speaker for the Dead before I read Ender's Game and I liked both. Xenocide was adequate, but I got really tired of the OCD descriptions.