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1Limelite
I'd like to start a topic series titled, "My Love/Hate Relationship with (Name of Author)." All members are invited to start a topic with their selectee writer, using the title format above. Please include an image of your Author -- the more obscure or peculiar the better -- then dig into your subject, telling us about your walk along the rocky road within the pages of his/her books.
Some authors are infuriating because they write a great first novel and follow it up with a dog; others you read and fall in love with their writing style only to find that when you read another of his/her works, it's nothing like the first; even worse are the writers who seem to write the same story over and over, even when it's not a series.
I can think of writers who've killed off a protagonist who I've fallen in love with. I HATE that! I also HATE it when authors use devices that really annoy me. My ultimate peeve is having a narrator who's dead tell me the story. GAK!!
I love writers who can seduce me so that I don't want their book to end; I usually spend hours after I finish those books continuing to live in their works. It's a kind of literary hangover following a marvelous drunk. I love wickedly cheeky or acerbic characters who suffer from irredeemable ironic natures, especially when they're sidekicks in satirical novels. I love irreverent, know-it-all heroines, who delight in interfering or muddling in other people's lives. But I hate it if writers end their novels about such women by making them totally repent and abandon their former ways.
If I can go on and on with no specific author in mind. Imagine what you can do when you get riled up or enthused about one special one. I hope you do! Just remember -- START A NEW TOPIC, don't spill the beans in this thread. And please keep the title format standard so we can all know there's a new rant or rave to comment on. Thanks!
Here's an image to inspire you to get started. Be as provocative and outspoken as you wish, and never fear, a happy ending isn't required. Remember, in Chinese movies, the hero/ine always dies. I love Chinese movies!)
(Right click on image and select "View Image." Click on new image to enlarge.)
Some authors are infuriating because they write a great first novel and follow it up with a dog; others you read and fall in love with their writing style only to find that when you read another of his/her works, it's nothing like the first; even worse are the writers who seem to write the same story over and over, even when it's not a series.
I can think of writers who've killed off a protagonist who I've fallen in love with. I HATE that! I also HATE it when authors use devices that really annoy me. My ultimate peeve is having a narrator who's dead tell me the story. GAK!!
I love writers who can seduce me so that I don't want their book to end; I usually spend hours after I finish those books continuing to live in their works. It's a kind of literary hangover following a marvelous drunk. I love wickedly cheeky or acerbic characters who suffer from irredeemable ironic natures, especially when they're sidekicks in satirical novels. I love irreverent, know-it-all heroines, who delight in interfering or muddling in other people's lives. But I hate it if writers end their novels about such women by making them totally repent and abandon their former ways.
If I can go on and on with no specific author in mind. Imagine what you can do when you get riled up or enthused about one special one. I hope you do! Just remember -- START A NEW TOPIC, don't spill the beans in this thread. And please keep the title format standard so we can all know there's a new rant or rave to comment on. Thanks!
Here's an image to inspire you to get started. Be as provocative and outspoken as you wish, and never fear, a happy ending isn't required. Remember, in Chinese movies, the hero/ine always dies. I love Chinese movies!)
(Right click on image and select "View Image." Click on new image to enlarge.)
2Cecrow
I'm thinking here of Dan Simmons, who I list on my profile as a favourite author but have reservations about reading again. I've read five of his books so far, and he's come up with brilliant stuff but has to keep interrupting it with brutally horrific violence. I've a weak stomach for horror but I love his sci-fi concepts, so I try to put up with one element while enjoying the other. He doesn't always make it easy.
3Limelite
>2 Cecrow:
Please start a topic on Danny-Boy. I at least want to see what he looks like!! Maybe some cover art if it reflects the violence in his novels? Can tell us about one of his books that particularly drives you nuts?
Please start a topic on Danny-Boy. I at least want to see what he looks like!! Maybe some cover art if it reflects the violence in his novels? Can tell us about one of his books that particularly drives you nuts?
4Cecrow
lol - I don't know if I'm a big enough fan to warrant building a new topic on him. You can see his mug by clicking his name in my post, or here: Dan Simmons.
Mr Simmons taught English in schools, and has an excellent series of blogs on his web site intended for would-be writers but that gives more than a little insight into his own style and approach: http://www.dansimmons.com/writing_welll/archive/writing_index.htm
An example? In his Ilium/Olympos duology he does a science fiction riff on Homer. It boils down to future humans (or maybe AI?) evolving to the point of being so god-like, they recreate the siege of Troy on Mars and act the part of the gods in the story. Only it doesn't all go according to plan. It's a great idea, and I'd recommend it to any fan of Homer who'd like to see it being played with - except that every once in a while you get treated to some intensely detailed scene of human evisceration, etc., that would make Stephen King proud. The kind of images you can't easily scrub from your brain, or at least I can't.
Same thing in Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, The Terror, and probably everything else - great ideas to build a story around, marred with unmitigated episodes of violence.
Funny, now that I think about it there's another author I really like, Gary Jennings, who does almost the same thing in his historical fiction but for some reason I don't object to it with him. I think the difference is that in Jennings' work, it has at least some justification in its historical context and the character witnessing it is as horrified as the reader. With Simmons it's entirely invented science fiction, and presented more like, "oh, and then this happened, and now we'll carry on ..."
Mr Simmons taught English in schools, and has an excellent series of blogs on his web site intended for would-be writers but that gives more than a little insight into his own style and approach: http://www.dansimmons.com/writing_welll/archive/writing_index.htm
An example? In his Ilium/Olympos duology he does a science fiction riff on Homer. It boils down to future humans (or maybe AI?) evolving to the point of being so god-like, they recreate the siege of Troy on Mars and act the part of the gods in the story. Only it doesn't all go according to plan. It's a great idea, and I'd recommend it to any fan of Homer who'd like to see it being played with - except that every once in a while you get treated to some intensely detailed scene of human evisceration, etc., that would make Stephen King proud. The kind of images you can't easily scrub from your brain, or at least I can't.
Same thing in Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, The Terror, and probably everything else - great ideas to build a story around, marred with unmitigated episodes of violence.
Funny, now that I think about it there's another author I really like, Gary Jennings, who does almost the same thing in his historical fiction but for some reason I don't object to it with him. I think the difference is that in Jennings' work, it has at least some justification in its historical context and the character witnessing it is as horrified as the reader. With Simmons it's entirely invented science fiction, and presented more like, "oh, and then this happened, and now we'll carry on ..."
5ahef1963
My love-hate relationship with Neil Gaiman.
Two of my very favourite novels ever are by Gaiman. The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere. I hold The Ocean at the End of the Lane in the highest regard, and I really liked Stardust. The Sandman series was great.
Then there's American Gods and Anansi Boys, and most of his short stories, all of which (in my humble opinion), are crap.
One never knows what one will get from Gaiman, but he's reached such excellence that I always try his works and hope that I like them.
Two of my very favourite novels ever are by Gaiman. The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere. I hold The Ocean at the End of the Lane in the highest regard, and I really liked Stardust. The Sandman series was great.
Then there's American Gods and Anansi Boys, and most of his short stories, all of which (in my humble opinion), are crap.
One never knows what one will get from Gaiman, but he's reached such excellence that I always try his works and hope that I like them.
6Cecrow
>5 ahef1963:, that's interesting. I read American Gods, decided I didn't like him and never went back. Saw the movie Stardust and didn't want to read it. You're saying I have to try again?
72wonderY
>6 Cecrow: Oh yes! Stardust, the novel, is much different from the movie. And Neverwhere is wonderful!!!
8.Monkey.
>6 Cecrow: I enjoyed Neverwhere, thought Coraline was eh, alright, haven't touched the rest of his novels. Sandman was phenomenal, the rest of his graphic novel body of work is completely blah, not even worth glancing at, except possibly to look at the things McKean puts together visually. So, I haven't really been keen to bother with more of his novels, personally.
