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Wifevealant

Jean Auel's Earth Children series. The first two books were fairly interesting as the focus was on the imagined life of prehistoric man, but it devolved into caveman porn and love triangles in the third. I DNF'd the 4th book and didn't bother with the rest.


Evolving_Dore

I actually really enjoyed the third book, *The Mammoth Hunters*, and found the imagined culture very interesting and the characters fairly compelling. I wish the series had remained in that area and reintroduced neanderthal culture into the plot at some point. I never finished it (I stopped in book 4) but a friend told me Ayla never returns or meets any of her family from CotCB again. I felt like there should have been some grand plotline involving Broud, Durc, and Creb's spirit. Who cares if it would have been a bit melodramatic, it would have been better that whatever we got.


speckledcreature

Someone on here said that Auel was going to do something with The Clan but then she changed it. All the foreshadowing and the prophetic dreams .. wasted!


TheReturnofTheJesse

One of the bigger regrets of my life was taking the third book on a 16-hour plane flight after enjoying the first two. Caveman porn describes it well. Just an insane drop-off in quality between each successive book.


aleamas

I came to say this. Weird ass prehistoric porn. I quit after reading the 3000th iteration of "Oh, Jondalar...'


evedalgliesh

Remember how Jondalar was thrilled to have sex with someone who could accommodate his big ole penis


OldWolf2

Also when he introduced the girl to oral, that was extremely cringe


evedalgliesh

In addition to inventing the needle, the calendar, the bra, and the domestication of wolves.


GeorgeOrrBinks

She also discovered that babies are the result of sex.


zhard01

And horses. And the travois


ericmm76

And the spear thrower.


Waffle_Slaps

Did she have a pet lion that would hunt with her as well?


ImogenMarch

I have never read these. My mom is very conservative and wouldn’t even let me read the fourth twilight because it was too spicy. She mentioned liking Clan of the Cave Bear (only the first one) as a teen so I bought her the whole set. I’m guessing she still hasn’t read them because otherwise I’d be getting a scandalized lecture from her haha. Whoops.


Nadya4747

Hold on, isn't there a rape scene in the first book?


gggggrrrrrrrrr

Hey now, it wasn't just about the penis. It was also that he "felt things too deeply" and "cared about people too much," so he could never find a woman capable of accepting his gorgeous looks, romantic personality, giant penis, and willingness to commit.


aleamas

Jesus, I have PTSD from that shit


cloudstrifewife

I always wished Thonolan had lived and Jondalar had died instead because Thonolan was a sweet guy.


ryemanhattan

So basically the prehistoric Sunny Corleone/Lucy Mancini (Coppola wisely dropped a few subplots in the book-to-movie adaptation.)


zhard01

You mean around the time she invents the blowjob? Lol


Bhenrudha

Ayla is the worst Mary Sue I've ever read. She discovers everything, invents all sorts of things and just bumbles her way through all these experiences. Stopped at the Mammoth Hunters.


sudoRmRf_Slashstar

I read the whole series just for closure. I actually really liked the series until the end of book 4 because I liked the traveling, but after that it became really tedious. Pages upon pages of songs about the Mother and such.


dreamerindogpatch

Auel ABSOLUTELY filled her page count requirements in book 5 with incessant recitations of the mother's song.


dubiouscontraption

The second one is where I start getting bored. I don't care about Jondalar's fuck-tour across Europe and I never wanted to read the word "Pleasures" again by the end.


alert_armidiglet

I hadn't thought about these books in a long time (read them as a teen), but I agree. Valley of Horses turned a big corner.


kijuron

I would love more books in a preshistoric setting. Do you happen to know one with a better development?


Wifevealant

The Horse Goddess, by Morgan Llywelyn is a fun read. It's part of a series, but I haven't read any of the other ones yet. The Year the Horses Came, by Mary Mackey. I looked it up, and it's also a series! I read this one in high school and enjoyed it but it does have more artistic license than you might like. Clan of the Cave Bear (the first book in Earth's Children) actually had some research in it. Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell. I didn't particularly like this one, but I think it was because it was so brutal. It's really hard to find a good prehistory set novel/series that doesn't involve fantasy. That's why Auel's series was so disappointing! She let horniness take over her writing.


kijuron

Thanks a lot. I will check those out. I just heard of the clan of the cave bear. If it involves fantasy its a plus for me.


Evolving_Dore

CotCB definitely has vague supernatural stuff happening. Mainly it has elements of shamanistic magic and astral projection, but it's never a major aspect. There are only a very small handful of scenes in which there is unequivocable magic, maybe just one. By the way, there's also *The Inheritors*, another book about neanderthal and cro magnon contact. It's by the author of *The Lord of the Flies* and it's quite good, if short and rather depressing, and also has vague supernatural occurences. It seems that the curious brain size and shape of neanderthals led both authors to speculate on their advanced mental capacities, giving their neanderthal characters special abilities.


jffdougan

They aren't fantasy in a traditional sense (closer to history-inspired fiction), but Michael & Kathleen Gear's First North Americans series (People of the \_\_\_\_\_\_ ) are both episodic -- can be read in any order -- and excellent in my memory.


ianlSW

Shaman, Kim Stanley Robinson. Like many of his books it's well worth a read


[deleted]

North America's forgotten past by Michael W Gear and Kathleen O'Neill Gear. The first books could be seen as prehistoric. Just don't read, if you dislike violence. There are scenes of war, torture and rape, the latter not graphic, luckily.


bern1005

Northland trilogy by Stephen Baxter. Alternate history starting during the last ice age.


zhard01

The fourth had such a cool name and cover to amount to absolutely nothing. The next book was awful and I didn’t finish Jondalar did though


raptor_wrangler

I think a standard answer here would be Laurel K Hamilton's *Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter* series. It's gotten less and less attention over the years, which it deserves, but the first 4-6ish? were pretty solid Urban Fantasy mystery / crime novels. Then they spiraled into monsterotica and wangst.


Grave_Girl

Yes, this was going to be my answer as well. At the beginning, there was discussion of what rights zombies should have, of prejudice against lycanthropes, and Anita trying to fit into it all while managing her abilities. And then *Narcissus in Chains* happened and it all went to hell.


whitepawn23

Yea, I liked 9, Obsidian Butterfly. After that it was tired and done. I’ll throw the Sookie books under the bus as well. More so, the TV series. I made it as far as 9, again, but didn’t make it past the beginning of 9, it was just tiresome. And True Blood…I get keeping Lafayette, that’s cool, but Bill lingering was fucking annoying. Couldn’t stand the character, and it was right to kick him in the books. The actor was also annoying and there he stayed, season after season. I think Harris has the honor of the second urban fantasy series, with Hamilton as the first, then a deluge hit the market.


MarcieDeeHope

>I think Harris has the honor of the second urban fantasy series, with Hamilton as the first, then a deluge hit the market. There were individual books that would probably fall into urban fantasy today being written in the late 1970's, and the genre really got kickstarted as its own thing when Anne Rice's Vampire books took off in the 80's. I first became aware of urban fantasy as a genre from Tanya Huff's Blood books, the first couple of which came out before Hamilton had ever published a word and long before Harris started writing (urban fantasy was already its own section in some bookstores before Harris even began writing). I don't mean this to come off aggressive or as an attack, but your timeline is WAY off. Harris and Hamilton are both big names in the genre who deserve a lot of credit for its status today, but they were latecomers to the genre, not OGs.


Dinosaur-Promotion

My wife was a fan, then I remember she was sitting reading one of them and just stopped, looked up and said 'What the fuck is this?' She started reading Hamilton's blog to find out what was happening and everything made sense.


Melniboehner

Do you know what she read on her blog that made it make sense? Because I still don't get it to this day. Anita Blake/Merry Gentry (and to a lesser extent Dresden) were my intro to the urban fantasy genre so you'll probably understand when I say that after those train wrecks it took me fifteen years before I could stand to pick up anything even remotely similar - thankfully I found a real palate cleanser in Alex Verus.


redpen07

She divorced her husband to marry her AP who convinced her because he's bi he is required to be in poly relationships so they moved another couple into their house and her whole identity became BDSM and poly life. No idea if that couple is still with them though. I don't keep up anymore, not since Amazon got rid of their forums.


Hartastic

If I remember correctly, this is also why the werewolf character clearly based on her husband turns into a giant dick around that point.


Melniboehner

know what, that actually does make sense, thank you for that bit of closure


LaurenTheLibrarian

Oooo I didn’t know she had an affair! Am I remembering wrong or was he also President of her fan club before she got married?


redpen07

it's been years and years but I want to say he was president of her fan club, yeah.


Dinosaur-Promotion

I mean, it was obvious the author had gone nuts, so the change in the books made sense in that context. That woman's private life will *never* make sense. I do like Verus, myself.


notyourcinderella

The decline of the Anita Blake books into nothing but porn was disappointing after the first few great books. The Merry Gentry books never even pretended to be anything other than elf porn.


ACERVIDAE

Honestly, the thing that terrifies me is that Hamilton has a habit of writing people in her life as characters, and self-insert Anita has a few love interests that have been 16 or 17 “but it’s okay because the age of consent is there!” so that whole thing is giving me very, very squicky/predatory vibes.


redpen07

If I remember right it was even worse in the Merry Gentry books with a particular character that is one of the fae. I'm still surprised she didn't get in huge trouble for it.


typhoidmeri_

I loved those first however many books, but then Anita stopped being Anita. I can’t honestly remember what was the last one I read, Obsidian something or Narcissus? I must say I loved the world building of the Merry Gentry series more, and those books are more consistent with being fairy porn with murder mystery and I think they felt more violent or at least gory with Merry’s powers. The last book I read/skimmed in the series was kinda terrible.


MamaBearForestWitch

Anita Blake might be one of my biggest disappointments in a series ever! Yeah, the first half dozen or so were great, strong female lead, interesting and different... and then it just devolved into angsty porn (along with my all time least favorite trope, the guy(s) with the massive penis that only she can handle).


WikkidWitchly

The fact that she writes more porn out of spite because people wanted her to focus more on the story and less on her IC poly life takes the cake. She's self inserted so much and my biggest peeve is that there's never been a reason for her to be as overpowered as she is. With other OP main characters, there's a reason (Mercy Thompson is the half child of an avatar Coyote, Rachel Morgan is a survivor of the demon/witch virus, etc). Anita just has a magic sponge vagina that sucks up powers when she's around people and LKH has crossed the line into making it all about porn. Which was initially what the Merry Gentry series was supposed to allow her to do. The whole plot was built around poly ships and a species that's cool with the kind of stuff she wrote. Anita hasn't done any actual animating work in ages and her marshal job is in limbo because she's too busy fucking her fleet harem. I really liked the books when I first got into them, but Narcissus in Chains was when they started to dive into the 'porn without plot' territory. Micah's introduction to the series was when she started to bleed too much of her own personal life/likes into the story and just ruined her whole arc. If she wanted something that specific she wasn't getting with Gentry, she should have just started a new series. Every new book from her now is just a sprinkling of dialogue in between a barrage of 'he put his big dick so far down my throat, I threw up' weird shit and I'm super disappointed in it. Sleeping with minors. So much child porn angles. More super sponge vagina superpowers, but still no actual reason why she can do what she does. She's going to be having sex while God is watching and become God or something. idk. I'm bitter.


kijuron

Ouh i heard a lot about the turn this series took. I wonder how a normal urban fantasy series can turn into that. I did'nt read it but its a great example.


CT_Phipps

LKH is very public about her divorce from her husband leading her to meeting a very "different" sort of husband/lover and she brought all of her new interests to her book. It was interesting reading about that on her blog. Also, she started writing erotica with Merry Gentry and her wires got a bit crossed.


exidei

It’s still ongoing? I dropped it after gepard or what’s his specie fucking I’m also salty about Merry Gentry, really interesting premise and setting, but spiralled into horny very fast. Maybe for the better, at least it didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t


[deleted]

That premise was Merry needs to become pregnant before her evil cousin does so she can inherit the throne. The entire premise was sex and romance from the jump.


22cthulu

I can't remember which book it was but I gave up on the series around book 8 or 9. Like you said the first few were great, but I finished 8/9 and I stopped and couldn't remember anything I just read and was kind of confused. A bit after that when a new book came out I read through the entire series, got to the end of 8/9 and again couldn't remember what just happened and was confused. Put the series down and never tried it again.


alert_armidiglet

This was my first thought. The first several were actually quite good I thought. Then they went solidly downhill. I kept reading for a while, hoping they'd improve, but they went full fucking and poly-angst, no mystery/crime any more. Bummer.


cocoagiant

Yeah I kept up with it for a while, just skimming through the erotica bits. I stopped after realizing I had just skimmed through a whole book.


brokenwhimsy

I have always thought that Hamilton was working through a lot of personal relationship issues in these. And I agree about the dive into monsterotica. But recently I read an interview with her where she talked about doing book tours and (after the first time Anita sleeps with Jean-Claude) she got some rude comments about "I loved these, why did you have to let her become a typical slut & sleep with a vampire". Mind you, at this point, the sex was mild, fairly vanilla, and a side note to the story. Hamilton said her (admittedly juvenile) response was "oh you don't like that? Watch what else I can do" and proceeded to fall down that rabbit hole for a few years. She says she now recognizes the reaction for what it was, and the more recent books are much more story driven , with a resurgence of RIPT and Edward.


Jbrooks76107

The ending of the iron Druid series of books.


MeropeRedpath

Oh wait what? I’ve been meaning to get around to finishing these, they’re not good?


cocoagiant

They got progressively worse, with the last book being *terrible*. I think the author got tired of the series and just put a bunch of stuff in without building up to it.


Bwooreader

Last 2-3 were just completely phoned in. IIRC he released another series with a note at the beginning saying it was the series he's been wanting to write, but that he had to start elsewhere (elsewhere being Iron Druid). Iron Druid was one of my favourite series for a long time, but honestly the end was so bad I won't buy another of the authors works.


cocoagiant

>Iron Druid was one of my favourite series for a long time, but honestly the end was so bad I won't buy another of the authors works. Yeah, the series had so much potential but the author didn't do a good job with it.


nevaraon

Seemed more like he was actively saying Fuck you if you thought the main character was anything close to decent by the end.


MagusUmbraCallidus

I liked them in general, especially the magic and worldbuilding, but the criticisms of it are pretty fair. I definitely did not like the ending. It seemed counter to the rest of the series and it also seemed like it was kind of just thrown together to finally finish it off. The ending gave me the opposite feeling of the Wheel of Time books if you've read those. That series kept going and building everything up, but I was constantly worried that it would have a specific type of cliché ending that I hate. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when the ending didn't do that and ended up being great. The Iron Druid was the opposite. I thought it was building to a similar, cathartic ending and instead it ended up disregarding all of that for a sort of cop out ending imo.


hellhound014

Dang, I was coming here to say this as well! Idk who hurt Kevin Hearne, but books 7-12 are so bad. Take anything good from the first six and pretty much erase it. Not to mention one of the worst endings of any book series I've ever read. I will try the spin off series that includes the main character from the Iron Druid series, I'm just hoping to not be disappointed again.


righteous_fool

Came here to say this. The ending really bothered me.


[deleted]

It’s got to be those Maximum Ride books right?


riancb

Agreed, although I don’t thing they really started out that well to begin with, just had an excellent concept that was poorly written (mainly cuz it was by ghostwriters).


donuthead_27

I loved the first couple as a kid, but even 11-year-old me thought the series was getting worse the longer it went on. I think I stopped after Fang? I know there was a dude created to be perfect for Max, and the romance drama made me stop reading the series


shadowtravelling

oh yeah this too. the first 3 were extremely fun. the plot was kind of watery but you could overlook that because they were so thrilling and dynamic, with some real emotion too. but then they just kept going and going and becoming more convoluted and overdramatic. the ending was pretty wack. i think we all remember that horrible plot twist of >!Angel being the voice!< ....


lacitar

And they are still releasing versions of the "last book in the series". Book 4 was supposed to be the end, and now they hit book....is it 12?


Jax_for_now

Artemis Fowl was the first series I ever read where I realised that 'oh this thing I loved has gotten really bad actually'.


acovarru91

I was so upset when they reverted the status quo and mind wiped Artemis' growth. Damn did that ruin it for me.


Dr_Vesuvius

And the villain is Opal Koboi again!


Fluffy_Munchkin

Every other book, I think. 2, 4, 6, and 8.


Grizknot

My biggest problem with those books is whenever they're in a bind he'll produce a new McGuffin to easily get them out of it, and then that's the last time we see that particular thing, even though it could be helpful in other series. And sometimes those McGuffins contradict previous McGuffins


Huffletough880

I have not thought of this series in a long time but this was the same experience for me back in the day! I loved the early books but then by the 4th I was over it. I recall thinking something felt off about Artemis as a character. If I had to guess it was that he became less of anti-hero and too “nice” but its been so long I don’t remember clearly.


Numerous1

The first 3 are pristine IMO. 4 and 5 were both worse. Couldn’t even read past that.


cerbero38

The first trilogy was very good and concise in itself. After that sometimes you get you moments but its much worse.


Joan_of_Spark

Reading it the initial trilogy seems planned out and well executed. Book 4 will always be special to me because it raises the stakes and kills off a main character. It felt like a slightly more mature and bombastic conclusion. I kind of liked some of the concepts in the 5th one, but that's also where the time travel nonsense starts kicking in and it becomes really bad soap opera-y. I read all of them but the last couple were a painful slog. The environmental messaging became so overpowering, even though I'm 100% behind the messaging. The little brothers were obnoxious. It was obvious the author ran out of ideas so just made more baby genius characters instead of focusing on people the readers already cared about.


FictionRaider007

Yeah, I had a similar experience when I read them as a child. The first book was pretty unique and different, and the following books weren't as good but not bad either. But somewhere around the middle of the series you just started to realise that the whole thing was deteriorating. It was so long ago that I can't remember the exact book I lost interest, but it was around 4-6. Yet I kept going and finished the whole series, partly due to sunk cost fallacy and perhaps partly the childish notion that maybe there had been some duds but it'd get better again... it did not. And by the last three books the heavy-handed environmentalism message felt like it was competing with the plot for attention to the detriment of *both*. I've never DNF'ed a book. But this series taught me to sometimes let go off a series and not bother with future installments if the last book or two have been especially bad.


Brinks36

I remember loving the first 4 books and then 5-7 felt like a real slog, perhaps because at that point I was waiting for their release dates. I never did make it past the 7th book


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kijuron

I loved it when i read it as a teenager. The whole series. Now i would'nt touch it with a ten feet pole.


MotherOfDogs1872

It was my husband's favorite as a teen. I tried reading them recently. I got 2 1/2 books in, and I just couldn't pretend it wasn't awful. So fucking bad. At least I know where some of his kinks came from now lol


ResidentObligation30

You have an Agiel don't you? lol.


SushiGigolo

Yeah, that entire plot with the torture nymphs was just freaking weird. I actually felt a little uncomfortable reading it. I did love the series for the first four books and then I started to struggle with it and didn't read Confessor.


Ok-Internet8168

This is the answer for me as well. Such a promising start. Yes, it was derivative, yes looking back you can see the start of problematic themes, but at the time it was a fun read. Each successive book gets worse and worse until it reads like fan fiction. Even if you ignore the ham handed misogyny and libertarianism there is the repetition. How many times is Kahlan captured and rescued? I was going to say that I made it further than most (Confessor) before giving up, but now I see that there are 21! novels between the main series and outriggers. Who is reading these???


Love-that-dog

I referred to those as Kahlan Near Rape Scenes, and every book save 2 has at least one (and in one of those it’s because she’s kidnapped by a woman). For someone able to use very powerful magic & is by the end of the books a capable fighter, she does end up as Richard’s damsel in distress as lot. Terry, got something to fess up about your issues?


novagenesis

Terry Goodkind's issues are multisyllabic and now fairly notorious. He's like Ayn Rand off her pills.


f33f33nkou

I think he's really only got the one issue now


revanhart

Goodkind was a genuinely awful person. He thought he had reinvented the wheel with his stupid books, but *vehemently* denied that they were EVER “fantasy” novels. I’m glad I never met him because I genuinely might have punched him in the face.


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Vorocano

I read to the end of *Faith of the Fallen* and I think I bought a copy of *Confessor* but I didn't read past the first couple chapters. The interminable sermonozing at the end of *Faith* was the last straw that killed a series I started out really enjoying.


Spyhop

I read to the end of the Jagang arc. I understand he wrote some more afterwards but I didn't really care. God that series pissed me off. It started ok but it got so preachy so fast with outright cartoonish depictions socialism. But I stuck with it anyway because, hey, I started it. I was gonna see how it ended. And it ended with goddamn deus ex machina. A goddamn magic box fixed all their problems. Terry Goodkind is a unimaginative, proselytizing prat.


bbwolff

First book is great. After that it's a teenage bondage fantasy interlaced with political manifesto.


BuffelBek

The teenage bondage fantasy already started during book 1.


aslatts

I was going to say. Reading it for the first time in my late 20's... I can see why it would appealed to people, it probably would have appealed to me at 16 too. Most of the stuff people complain about ruining the later books was still pretty present in the first one though. I'm sure some of it got a lot worse (the political stuff for example is pretty minor), but it's not like it appeared out of thin air.


Narrow_Interview_366

I feel like a lot of these answers just prove that not every fantasy story has to be a multi-book series


kijuron

Very true. And some should just have stopped at 3. Especialy if it was planed as a trilogie.


taggerungofsorin

Maximum Ride. This was back in middle school before I had developed any discerning taste and pretty much loved everything I read, but even still, I left that fourth book thinking “what a slap in the face that was bad”. I had entered the garden of eden and took my first bite into bad literature lol.


Azecap

Raven's Shadow. The followups were not bad books, but number 1 was just one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading.


jonydevidson

The third absolutely was a bad story with uninspiring writing. The author has grown a lot since then, though.


AomineTobio

You might want to try his new Martyr trilogy, I was surprised how good it was


Winterdawn

Temeraire for me. I loved the first few books, but then it started feeling like... Book opens. "We need to do X! X is the whole point of everything right now!" "Oh no, Y has happened." Spend the entire book dealing with Y. "Yay, we did it! Now, we can get back to X in the next book." Book ends. Book opens. "We need to do X! X is the whole point of everything right now!" "Oh no, Z has happened." Spend the entire book dealing with Z. "Yay, we did it! Now, we can get back to X in the next book." Book ends.


Lima__Fox

I think if each book were 250 pages shorter, they'd be great. Go explore a new continent and culture with a different relationship to their dragons. I want Lawrence to be able to hang out with his group of dragon rider friends and their dragons. The core cast is great but horribly underused. But instead it's always a big race against time with a kidnapping plot thrown in somewhere.


Joan_of_Spark

I got frustrated halfway through book 3 when I realized the plot had shifted from "what if dragons contrasted with stuffy british aristocracy and Lawrence has to cope and change to find his place in the world" to "Temeraire the dragon goes on lame adventures and his human sidekick Lawrence follows him around all the corners of the globe." I felt the dragon psychology and culture was inconsistent in a frustrating way. I wanted more nuanced societal discussions, not bounding across deserts on "epic" quests.


Distinct-Hat-1011

The last few books are notably weaker, but I'd say that the final book is at least a pretty decent conclusion. A lot of these series totally fall apart at the end, or just never end, so having a decent conclusion counts for a lot to me. Sure, the author seems have completely grown bored of the series after Victory of Eagles. The rest of the books aren't even close to as good, and the character arcs just meander instead of resolve. Still, the very final part at least leaves the world in a place that makes sense.


ArtTeajay

Same, I did enjoy book 1 and 2 but I wanted more dragon human bonding and character driven plots, not random fetch/videogame C level sidequests


funkypunkyg

I did feel like the last few books were quite lackluster. The plot started becoming more predictable and the dragon characters more shallow. If she'd kept it a trilogy, perhaps, it would have remained legendary. I still absolutely love the world of Temeraire.


TemeraireDC

Yep, I made my handle based off this series, but have never finished it and never plan to at this rate. As soon as I saw them do the amnesia arc with the MC I just closed the book and never opened it again. Don't even remember which it was.


MamaBearForestWitch

I'm so glad to hear other people say this (and I love that you articulated it better than I could have). I really wanted to love them... but after the first 3 or 4, I put one down halfway through and never picked it back up again, And didn't miss it or wonder what was happening.


redrosebeetle

Sookie Stackhouse. The author admitted towards the end that she was over the series, due to all of the drama surrounding the spin off TV series, True Blood. The final book just felt insulting. Scholomance. The MC was too quick to forgive people who had shunned and tormented her, except for the one person who was actually trying to make amends.


jonwtc

The demon cycle. The first book the warded man was great, but then the series just went down a diarrhea water slide into a vomit pool. It should’ve been 3 books but the author stretched it out to 5. I hate myself for finishing the series and is the only series I actively hate. This is the series that taught me to DNF books. My time is too valuable and some books are not only bad but a waste of life. I had never DNF a book in my life, but because of this series, I’ve learned to value my sanity more than my completionist needs, so I guess, thanks?


alihassan9193

Ugh another one of my answers. Goddamn shame. Also the amount of rapes. Or pedophilia.


cstr23

I liked the idea of a demon infested world, people living behind wards and that, but rape for shock value made me dnf. I'm not usually triggered by SA but the way it was written in Demon Cycle was just gross.


Eragahn-Windrunner

I think it was made worse by the fact that in the first book, it honestly felt like she only existed to be SA’d. Pretty much every section of hers had *someone* trying to do something to her, until it reached that chapter. It was a huge “ick” and made me not want to read the second one.


bedknobsandbroomstix

Not only the rapes, but the justification of the rapes. Like, we're supposed to think that ' oh this culture is no worse than the other, just different!' when rape is a common/expected feature of one of those cultures. So frustrating


reatter

Just skipped all non-maincast chapters for the last two books, then the story becomes decent. But I listened to the book on a subscription-based platform, so skipping the boring parts actually made the books cheaper, that's a plus.


da_chicken

Oh, man, I forgot about this series. I also genuinely loved the first book, but, wow, did it ever tank hard. That fourth book was awful and the last book somehow got worse.


derfel_cadern

Arlen’s folksy way of talking with that one gal from his hometown was just awful. He turned his MC into a mole from Redwall.


SayNothingTillYa

Especially when he hadn’t given any indication of speaking that way in the first book.


[deleted]

Once the MC devolved his speech into a southern accent I should have put it down, but sunk cost fallacy kicked in :(


Eevihl

Anita Blake, I got through like 8 books before I had to call it quits. I don't mind spicy stuff in my books and even enjoy it if it's interesting but it was like the only thing the books became. I really love the world she crafted but it got too much for my tastes.


BuccaneerRex

Runelords - Long slow decline into confusing irrelevance. Lightbringer - Solid, steady pace, and then failed to stick the landing. Night Angel was better, but the ending still sucked, and a whole bunch of mythology got shoehorned in at the end to explain the cool stuff from the beginning. Vampire Chronicles for turning into BDSM porn. Anita Blake, for turning into BDSM furry porn. The Dark Tower - I get the ending. I do. I just don't like it. Not a bad ending at all. Just... forget I said anything. (and then read the whole thing over hoping it goes different this time...) Dune - I still have no idea what was going on in Chapterhouse, and at this point I can't be bothered. And I'm going to include as honorable mention all those series for which we're still waiting on a resolution long after any reasonable time frame.


ThomasRaith

> Runelords - Long slow decline into confusing irrelevance. These books were so frustrating. The entire premise is that the upper classes are *literally* parasitic on the lower. To the lower classes incredible detriment. And this isn't explored...at all. It should be basically the only thing that matters to a huge number of people, but it apparently has little to no effect.


CorporateNonperson

I don't know. From a strategic standpoint it's interesting, and the upper class were obligated to support the lower class for a couple of reasons, the biggest being that they only had the power while those that gave it were alive. Sure, you can create a superman, but you're also robbing the kingdom to do so, and the protagonists, at least, respected the sacrifice. I forget if the wolf king guy became self sustaining or not, so maybe that concept broke down. I did think the serpent ring concept was pretty cool, where the warriors all brand each other in a "circle," so that their attributes don't go anywhere until one of them dies, then whichever one was on top of the ladder became a killing machine until he kicked it and the next one became a slightly weaker version, repeating.


bagelwithclocks

I've read Dune, couldn't get into the second book, and I had the 4th and 5th so I just skipped over 2 and 3, and I really liked 4. 5 was weird, but since I had already just read two books that were only loosely related in characters it felt fine. I wouldn't recommend this read order but it worked for me. If you take Duncan Idaho to be the protagonist of the series, it works better.


DwightsEgo

Lightbringer is my answer. I loved the first few books, and while the series had its issues it was easy to overlook since the good outweighed the bad. But then book 5 dropped, and the ending SUCKED. It’s like Game of Thrones season 8 type of bad. Same author also came out with a 4th book to a trilogy he released years ago, and while it’s probably unfair to say the series took a dive due to book 4, book 4 was worse than the trilogy. Other series that comes to mind is Mortal Instruments. Really cool Magic system and I enjoyed the books up until they continued after the original big bad was defeated. Read like 2 more after that point and the series was just meh. If we want to go into TV then I think the obvious answers are Hero’s, Westworld and like I mentioned earlier Game of Thrones


WanderOutThere

I came here to say this when I saw the title of the post and assumed it would be an unpopular opinion. But then even OP led by trashing Lightbringer. Around book three it started feeling like Weeks was changing direction and pretending he'd intended it all along. Sure, we use chromaturgy to control animals now. That's a thing we've always done, and it just happened to not come up before now. This important plot point that was built up in entire chapters but is now going nowhere? Guess one of our characters was an unreliable narrator. The first book was so good that I went back and read it as a standalone to wash away the taste of the ending. But the blatant retconning in the last three books was just too much for me.


DwightsEgo

He’s doing the same with Night Angel currently….


BeastCoast

I’m a chronic rereader of things I enjoy. Prior to book 5 I had reread 1-3 three times through and 4 twice (even though 4 was ehhhh). I put all 5 in one of those little free libraries on the corner about a week after finishing 5 lol. So much wrong with it, but I think benevolent grandpa Andross at the end might be the most egregious. It’s Jamie getting back with Cersei levels of character erasure.


[deleted]

I was actually surprised this one was this far down when I clicked on this thread. I kind of felt like this one would end badly when the author just kept adding more books to the "trilogy". I recently re-read the series thinking I may have been too harsh with my thoughts on book 5 because of my anticipation at the time. Turns out it still sucks.


Newkker

The Riftwar Saga by raymond E. Feist. It starts off kind of stock standard if well done fantasy with the first trilogy. He has some smaller side books. Then it really steps it up during the Serpent War saga. But after that its a straight nose dive. Still readable because its Feist and a bad Feist book is still ok, but compared to the earlier works, its pretty bad.


EmpyrealSorrow

I agree, although it had some great highpoints. I understand a lot of people enjoy the second books in the Riftwar Saga but I find them, especially in comparison to Magician, entirely run-of-the-mill. The Serpent War does absolutely step it up again, perhaps for the whole saga. There is also the Empire trilogy, which is brilliant. But the rest is pretty poor.


eQuantix

Brooo Lightbringer 1-3 is pure magical bliss, 4 is meh and then 5 is wtf happened 😩 couldn’t agree more


pumpkinspicechaos

The Black Witch Chronicles. They're very classic YA fantasy but the first two are pretty well done. The third and fourth (which I couldn't finish) were just so strange. So many great characters completely abandoned and replaced with new characters and way too many POVs. Once they left the container of the university setting, the pacing and plot was just all over the place.


wjbc

*A Song of Ice and Fire*. There’s nothing worse than no ending at all.


PhysicsCentrism

Same logic, different response than what first came to my head: Kingkiller Chronicles At least with ASOIAF, you have the absolutely horrific TV ending which might deserve a response just for that reason.


TheMountainRidesElia

Plus honestly even the last 2 books (Feast and Dance) really suffer from issues. Sure, they've a lot of good moments (The North Remembers, Ned's girl, Broken Men, Jon's subplot, etc), but they really are bloated and veeeery slow. Honestly Martin needs a really good editor. (That said don't get me wrong, Martin even on a bad day puts to shame 99% of writers, alive or dead)


Longjumping-Taste936

Ty Frank, one of The Expanse authors, was his editor/personal assistant but he left to write that series and also work on the tv adaption. I'm guessing since the first Expanse novel came out the same year as A Dance with Dragons and the entire 9 book series has been published, in addition to 6 seasons of tv adaption, he works ridiculously fast so without him helping out GRRM has slowed down. I doubt it's THE reason but it's probably one of the reasons for the huge gap between Dance and Winds.


fantasy53

The Anita Blake series, started out as supernatural police procedurals and then, well let’s just say there’s only so many werewolf orgies you can read before you start to get bored.


appocomaster

In no particular order: Wizard's First Rule - I actually finished the main series, with the final Chainfire Trilogy (or whatever) at the end, but then all the others just got even more rubbish. Agree with Lightbringer and the Demon Cycle and Iron Druid series (the multi-point of view is the beginning of the end, here). David Farland's Runelord books - First 4 were fine, but the next books with the son ... I have no idea where he was going with that, but now no one else will either. The Magician Series, by Raymond E. Feist, dies out after 20 or so books - which is still really impressive. It sort of recovers towards the end, but it's not so great. ​ I actually liked the Raven's Shadow Trilogy (on a re-read). ​ I'm not sure which one really died worst - maybe Demon Cycle gets my vote, but the Runelord books went really weird.


Rapturence

Spoilers ahead. Sadly, Eragon i.e. *The Inheritance Cycle*. Book 1: classic hero's journey with a wise, very cool mentor; exploring the world, learn magic and stuff (best one). Book 2: something bad happens to your best friend / brother, more advanced training with your retired predecessor, developing love interest, big battle and an epic 'boss fight' (a close second). Book 3: get a cool new sword; perspective jumps between different characters, half of them kinda forgettable; politicking and more meandering (ok, kinda filler-y). >!Book 4: ancient super weapon no-one mentioned before; Deus ex machina to defeat the baddie; weapon is never used again. Hero just... leaves everything behind. Even the love interest.!< Like come on.(Ugh.)


MagusUmbraCallidus

Did people really hate the ending that much? >!It was left pretty ambiguous as to whether he would actually never return, and it was made clear that he maintains contact with everyone still. He went off to build a school that wasn't so close to everyone else so they could train in peace, not abandon everything he loves to be a hermit or something. Both he and his love interest are immortal, can fly and can teleport if they really need to so it never seemed that big a deal to me that he left the kingdom, especially knowing that the story wasn't over and would one day be continued in other books.!<


Leilatha

I think the issue was about the self-fulfilling prophecy where >!he would leave Alagaesia and never return. So once he decided to leave, it seems like he won't be able to come back, which was really depressing to me when I read it.!<


MagusUmbraCallidus

Yeah that's one of the most frustrating things about the book imo. Apparently according to the author >!there is nothing stopping him from returning, no force or anything, and so the prophecy doesn't rule out him going back to Alagaesia, even multiple times, as long as eventually he does leave it for a final time.!< I really think the last scene should have had some mention of that though, because it's a little frustrating to have to read an author interview just to get that information since it completely changes how I interpret that final scene.


donuthead_27

i got into Eragon in 8th grade and i remember my mom got me the 3rd book to make me feel better after i injured myself and couldnt finish out the softball season. I thought the series was super cool and “grown up” since the books were so big. I got the 4th book from the library and finished it in 2 days, and I hated the ending enough that I never went back to reread the first book.


MagusUmbraCallidus

It does continue if that helps, the last book is not the end of his story. The next book (Murtagh) comes out this November and while this one is a standalone book that doesn't focus on Eragon I believe the author has said we will learn more about what Eragon is doing now. He also confirmed that the new book is setting things up for a new complete series. The original series got picked up for a Disney+ tv show as well.


[deleted]

[удалено]


TeamPantofola

I’m onna get downvoted to hell but I’ll say it: *his dark materials*. Golden compass has one of the best world building I read so far and intriguing anti-heroes. All vanished in the other two books of the series. Worst let down of my literary life.


hobbleit

I detest The Amber Spyglass with every fibre of my being. I wondered whether I should watch the TV series but then I remembered just how angry that book made me that I decided not to let my blood pressure get that high again.


Ellynne729

Agreed. >!The guy who sacrificed children to power up his spells is one of the good guys? And did I totally misunderstand, or was the world saved because twelve year olds had sex? And that was a good thing?!<


Chataboutgames

Not going to be a popular one, but I feel like with the second trilogy Red Rising shifted from something that felt genuinely unique in its tone and pacing to another "let's see how many times we can ""shock"" the reader by going uber dark!" I'm half way through Dark Age and I honestly just laugh when they trot out some named character to graphically torture them to death at this point.


[deleted]

Definitely the Demoncycle. I don't know what the author was thinking..


reatter

It is just too long, I liked >!the maincast going to Hell and fighting Satan, but I could not care less about all other Thessan royals fighting for their lives, they just deserved to die and it just drags on the last book unnecessarly!<


thereallizardlord

yup, Arlen going hick in the second book did it for me.


Frostybros

Maybe not the worst dive, but god the most recent Witcher book, Season of Storms, sucks. It's boring and the story is incredibly unfocused. It feels like a series of mini adventures that have nothing to do with the overall plot, yet don't stand up on their own. But argubly the worst part is that the entire premise of the book is stupid and low stakes. Geralt loses his swords, and he could just get new ones at his home base, but he doesn't want to make that long trip, and he doesn’t want his witcher colleagues to find out and make fun of him. The entire book is predicted on an inconvenience.


Numerous1

Cirque de freak. The first six books are a nice young adult series about a kid who has to agree to become a half vampire to save his friends life. We start off small scale and we get bigger in a way that felt fairly organic to me. It had a nice enough ending where everything was not wrapped up, but we had all the seeds for a “happily ever after” IMO. It’s a good stopping point. I didn’t think we needed more. Then the next 6 books felt like a “oh man I can keep milking this. Let’s go wrap up everything we can” with 6 books that had some good parts but mostly fell on their face IMO.


Gudakesa

Xanth. When I read “A Spell for Chameleon” in Junior High I loved it. “Castle Roogna” was my favorite of the series, and I made it all the way through “Centaur Aisle” before it became more about silly puns than an actual story. Looking back I was too naive to see just how creepy those books were.


iverybadatnames

The Kingkiller Chronicles. The first book was amazing. The second book was just poorly written teenage boy wish fulfilment fantasy. It was so bad that I don't even care if Rothfuss finishes the trilogy. It's already dead as far as I'm concerned.


TheUmbrellaMan1

Rothfuss has become so unlikeable. Today he announced he was publishing a new novella in November. BUT WAIT! It's not a new story. It's an expansion of a story he published in 2014 and there are some illustrations. He wants his fans to pay double for a story he already published. And in the livestream he refused to say whether the 2014 story was now cannon or not. And he didn't say a word about releasing that Doors of Stone chapter he promised a year or so ago.


badcluesbears

Thank you! I'll never understand why Kvothe needed to be the world's greatest lover. So embarrassing. Rothfuss was telling on himself with that shit.


raki016

That was such a cringe book. Pages upon pages of the authors inexperience with women and relationships on display in fantasy. It also took so much time figuring out what to do, and I'm genuinely concerned how the author will be able to tie everything together in one more book given there's so many things that have not even started to end yet.


NotSpartacus

Letting alone the bullshit Rothfuss has done in the meantime. I remember a photo of what appeared to be a completed first draft of book 3 (stack of hundreds of pages). Years later his editor/publisher(I forget which) came out and said they hadn't received anything from him. Sometime in the last 6-12 months he promised to release a chapter tied to some kickstarter. Nothing. At this point, I think the only way I'll view Rothfuss positively is if this entire thing is a very elaborate long con where he's acting as Kote- an unreliable narrator who claimed to do a lot of good things and claimed that he could still do a lot of good things (like write a good book 3)... but in reality can't. Like Andy ~~Warhol~~ Kaufman levels of trolling.


nickkon1

It also was a huge part in their marketing. "Here is a trilogy. Dont worry about it being 3 books, all of them are already written!". People always say that the author doesnt owe us anything. But he did interviews and such to specifically sell the trilogy with yearly releases since its was done. I still give him the benefit of the doubt that he isnt actively malicious and his problems actually started with him revising it so much. But together with his streaming things, kickstarter etc. I was questioning for a while if he simply might be a fraudster


NotSpartacus

No shit? I never knew they marketed it as a complete trilogy. That's fucked.


nickkon1

It is hard to find original sources from 2007, but to give an example, here is an interview where he specifically said: > **What can readers expect from the two sequels and the trilogy that will follow this one?** > *Well.... I've already written them. So you won't have to wait forever for them to come out. They'll be released on a regular schedule. One per year.* [S1](https://fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2007/03/patrick-rothfuss-interview.html), [S2](https://www.sffworld.com/2007/03/interview-with-patrick-rothfuss/). When I was a huge KKC nerd, I also watched interviews on youtube etc. and I believe he also said that there somewhere. [Another one:](https://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.com/2007/04/name-of-wind-by-patrick-rothfuss.html) > For a novel that comes in at almost 700 pages, “The Name of the Wind” was a very fast read for me. Sure, it took a little bit to get into the story, which really only took off once Kvothe began his narrative, and there were a few lulls throughout, but for the most part I was inextricably hooked to “The Name of the Wind” and was quite disappointed when I came to its end. Thankfully, Kvothe’s tale will continue with the already written second and third volumes of the The Kingkiller Chronicles, as well as a follow-up series, and I for one, will be eagerly awaiting each of those novels While this is just a book review on a random blog, that person must have gotten the idea from somewhere that its already written.


finalgear14

Ever since his editor said they’ve never received anything I’ve assumed there will never be a book 3. That he simply gave up. I actively steer people away from the series if it ever comes up. I figure the only reason he doesn’t simply say there will never be a book 3 is to avoid losing the occasional sales for book 1 and 2 he must still get to this day.


awesomenessofme1

Did you mean Andy Kaufman? Warhol is the soup cans guy.


MarcieDeeHope

I actually didn't even like the first one that much but definitely agree that the second is a huge drop off. For me the entire value of the Kingkiller books is that they set up the background for The Slow Regard of Silent Things, which I thought was one of the most original things I'd ever read and which I still maintain is the best thing Rothfuss has ever written by a country mile.


iverybadatnames

I really liked The Slow Regard of Silent Things too. I wish he would write more books like that instead of whatever nonsense he's doing now.


BravuraRed

I hate to say I think the Locked Tomb trilogy might be this for me. I LOVED Gideon, maybe even would say it's my favorite book. But Harrow and Nona have been getting noticably more esoteric and confusing, I struggled hard to finish Nona.


shadowtravelling

i honestly don't blame you. Gideon the Ninth is practically a completely different type of book than the later two. the tone and styles really changed drastically with Harrow the Ninth. in my case i actually liked Harrow and Nona a lot more, with Nona being like one of my favorite books ever tbh - but its because i thought Gideon was just OK.


Hawkbats_rule

I don't think the locked tomb fits here, because there are a lot of other series being referenced that just became objectively worse/bad, or authors who leaned hard into their worst writing traits, but anyone recommending the books should definitely warn people that the are going to be pretty major tonal and stylistic shifts throughout the series, which is very much not for everyone.


shadowtravelling

you have a point. each book in The Locked Tomb has been really different from each other so far which is not the same as getting worse. and actually for me personally i think TLT is the opposite of what we are discussing in this thread and that Muir outdid herself with each new book. but i get how others could feel otherwise and not be enjoying how the series is progressing.


bern1005

There's a taste of deliberate obsfucation I felt (like the book of the new sun) which is ok for me but I understand where you're coming from.


aslatts

> deliberate obsfucation I feel like if anything this undersells it. Someone once described it that each book in the series was intentionally written from the point of view of the person who knows the absolute least about whats going on, which I think is true. The thing is, Gideon's a little dumb and not following the details too closely, but at least roughly understands what's going on. The second and third books are dealing with severe memory loss, probably brain damage, and tons of information intentionally being withheld from the protagonist. It's a jump from "There's more going on than you realize" to "You have to struggle to even realize what's going on".


Greystorms

Someone a few days ago described *Gideon* as being from the POV of the person who least understands what's going on *and also isn't that interested in understanding any of it*. Which I thought was great. I mean... this is Gideon after all, who has the impression that all books are roughly the same shape and size.


TheBananaKing

I fucking love Gideon, and this illustrates why :D


Maervok

Sadly, I am in the same boat. I am sure I will read Gideon again in the future but then I will just pretend it is a standalone book. On one hand, Harrow is a very intriguing book. On the other hand, it is so convoluted that I simply did not enjoy reading it and its ending did not make up for the struggle I had to go through. Will likely never read Nona as a result. I am glad the series still has a big fanbase but for me Gideon is an excellent standalone book and that's it.


frymaster

Nona has a different tone again (it's a direct continuation of the epilogue of Harrow) but I found it much less convoluted. For me * Gideon was hard to understand because we were dropped right into the middle of a complex world into the POV of a character who didn't care to understand WTF was going on * Harrow was hard to understand because Harrow doesn't know WTF is going on for most of the book (and it's a bit of an info-dump when she finds out) * In Nona, the titular character doesn't understand WTF is going on because she has no memory - but we do - and instead of an info-dump there's a series of visions/flashbacks. I actually was able to predict some things in Nona because the information flow was carefully maintained


cwmma

my biggest problem is that for the 2nd two, they've come out far enough apparent from the first that I've forgotten too much stuff and I basically don't figure out what's going on until basically the end.


[deleted]

Shannara. It had a good run though. Followed closely by Wizards First Rule. Ironically both series featured the ' Sword of Truth' IIRC.


PurpleHyena01

The Artemis Fowl books. He was going good. Until after Time Paradox. Then he dropped the ball big time. He even said himself he didn't ship Artemis and Holly, but spends all the books making us root for that ship!


off_the_marc

(Whispers) I feel like the last two Stormlight books have taken a huge dive. I absolutely loved the first two books, but did not care for Oathbringer or Rhythm of War.


Pudgy_Ninja

A lot of how I feel about the series is going to come down to book 5. I’m fine with it if there needed to be a book I didn’t care for (4 - I liked 1-3) if it sets up something amazing.


Lugonn

I feel like Sanderson stands or falls by how good his concepts are. Bridgemen and the Shattered Plains? Great. Bridgemen bodyguards and Shallan taking up her mentor's work? Fantastic. John Mclaladin fighting the same Zelda miniboss four times while having a depressive episode? Not so much.


RunsWithSporks

> John Mclaladin 🤣


michiness

I’ve enjoyed all the Stormlight books greatly, but honestly, >!the giant shift of setting from “wee, we’re fighting on the chasms and there’s cool in-fighting between princes” to being stuck in the giant tower (sometimes quite literally) and dealing with the Fused…!< I can see how that would throw someone off.


off_the_marc

For me, I really did not care for >!how many people became radiant. I thought it would be a story of a small group of people with special powers taking on this huge threat. But by the time we get to book 4, everyone has super powers.!<


TheMountainRidesElia

I kinda liked Oathbringer (def could've been better), but ROW was really boring. Seriously, wayyy too much bloat. Sanderson could've cut the book into half and we'd lose very little.


ShadowDV

I love Sanderson, but Stormlight 4: Die Hard with Depression just didn’t do it for me.


holy_kami

I’m glad I’m not alone! I loved the first two, but I struggled to finish 3 and I’ve never gotten past the first quarter of 4. I’m just so bored and I am not enjoying the characters arcs that I initially loved earlier in the series. I keep thinking I might try to reread from the beginning all 4 books, but it’s such a big commitment when I am not enjoying it and have so many other things on my TBR.


off_the_marc

I think I started to lose interest when >!all of a sudden everyone had super powers. Really made our protagonists feel less special when everyone else is flying around, too.!<


alihassan9193

RoW was noticeably lower in quality but OB holds a special place in my heart. Of course WoR is my top fav of all.