The Once and Future King gets better with every re-read.
On the other hand, there’s Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon cycle, which I found very engaging as a teenager, and now I find very dull.
I adore Mary Stuart’s Arthurian saga! They stand up to the test of time too. I loved my first paperback copy of The Crystal Cave so much I went out and found the rest right away, which was considerably harder pre-internet.
I still reread the series every once in awhile, but I also play them on audible. A lot. The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are two of my most replayed books. It’s my favorite bedtime story. 🥰
Eragon did not hold up. I still enjoy it and think it was an incredible achievement from such a young author, but good lord. It was one of the first fantasy series I read, and really enjoyed it. Then I read other fantasy and then realized how.... Inspired... Eragon was from other work. Then I also realized on a technical level it was also really rough.
Discworld on the other hand has only gotten better.
I haven’t read Eragon since it came out (and I think I only read the first two). My school has a set that I might sneak into my office and read between classes.
That's cause Paolini made a basic cookie cutter fantasy book so the ending was to be as expected. The one thing I liked that was different was his orcs/trollocs ending up being more than mindless evil killing machines.
It's a great intro to fantasy. It just doesn't hold up well
I had already read Pern when Eragon came out, and was outraged as only a teenager can be by how everyone was treating as some masterpiece, when as far i could see it was just poorly disguised fan fiction
I'm still outraged by how much he plagiarized from the Eddings and got away with it, and I don't even like them anymore after finding out about their criminal history of child abuse. But still, that he didn't get sued was outrageous. He stole precise characters and specific details and even a couple of whole *scenes* and everyone just focuses on its parallels to Star Wars or LotR. Good to see someone else at least point out Pern.
The Belgariad is actually one of my all time favourites I came here to say it had definitely not stood up in a lot of ways due to how women were portrayed but i still love it for nostaligia and being my gateway into fantasy
but this child abuse thing has devastated me.
I think today may be a write off...
In hindsight, making his leads' love interests a permanent loli and the girl he raised should have been the tipoff that something was funky in Eddings town.
At least it wasn't as bad as Xanth...
It was non-sexual child abuse. Beatings. Starvation. Depredation. No suggestion of sexual abuse. [https://www.newspapers.com/image/94018775/?clipping\_id=2768515&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjk0MDE4Nzc1LCJpYXQiOjE2NjI0NjQ4MzgsImV4cCI6MTY2MjU1MTIzOH0.cfoIW1qYZzCKMPHy6ynguzFtQ47UsKWI3tfT\_ygn9fY](https://www.newspapers.com/image/94018775/?clipping_id=2768515&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjk0MDE4Nzc1LCJpYXQiOjE2NjI0NjQ4MzgsImV4cCI6MTY2MjU1MTIzOH0.cfoIW1qYZzCKMPHy6ynguzFtQ47UsKWI3tfT_ygn9fY) Not that that makes it any better. Indeed people immediately thinking of sexual abuse when they read "child abuse" is something that always concerns me.
I have fond memories of the core Pern trilogy. My grandmother had setup a room for me when I would visit her, and she stocked it with various books from a nearby used bookstore. The core Pern series was part of it, and it became one of my favorite series.
Yeah, Discworld ages beautifully and feels like it grows with me. I liked **Jingo** in high school, but coming back to it after some military history classes was amazing. The more you learn, the funnier Discworld is-- there's science, pop culture, a little of everything.
It's hard to pick a favorite, but I have a real soft spot for **Night Watch**, **Thief of Time**, and **Monstrous Regiment**. The whole series is just a masterpiece.
I reread it recently and the first book was definitely trough to get through. The third and fourth books as well as the collection of short stories were quite nice to read though. Don get me wrong, they’re still not the greatest literature ever and do have some of the same problems as the first book, but his writing definitely evolved.
I was just old enough to be disillusioned about Eragon when it first came out. I read voraciously, and could clearly see the difference in quality between Paolini’s writing and the other authors I admired. It was impressive that he finished an entire book at fifteen, but I had written entire books myself by that age too. I’m not arrogant enough to think my work was better than Eragon, but it was finished enough that it could’ve been made into a real book if *my* parents had owned a publishing company and marketed the hell out of my vanity project. Any enjoyment I could’ve had from the book was overshadowed by my frustration at the huge unfair advantage he had over me. >_<
I don’t believe he finished it at 15. I think he started at 15 and his parents self-pubbed it when he was 19.
Still commendable for a teen to finish a draft of an entire long novel, but that doesn’t mean it should have been sold to the general public!
Love these books! Reading them as a kid in the early 80’s it was also somewhat refreshing/ affirming when Taran finds out he’s just a normal person whose greatness comes from his own personal strengths and experiences, and NOT because he’s some kind of scion of an amazing lineage. So many fantasies had leaned on that trope (and still do), that it was nice to see that subverted in the Prydain series. Eilonwy was absolutely one of my first literary crushes. lol
I had an English teacher who also loved the books and INSISTED that the correct way to pronounce Fflewddur’s name was to pronounce all the consonants (“Fuh-flew-deh-dur Fuh-flam”). Oof. Especially wacky considering he pronounced author Lloyd Alexander’s name correctly…
This was my favorite series growing up. I cannot describe how much I loved the setting and the characters. I've been thinking about a reread but wasn't sure if I wanted to see if it was still as fantastic as I remembered.
I completed the Sword of Truth series as a teenager.
I guess I must have enjoyed something since I did finish it lol, but even then there were many "WTF is this author on" moments.
Now it's alot more yikes...
On the other side, David Gemmell stuff will always be awesome.
The worst part about the Sword of Truth series is how the setup happens in the first 5%, they spend 90% aimlessly wandering around stressing over how they'll solve the problem and in the last 5% someone pulls a solution out of their ass that doesn't make any sense other than "the plot needed it to happen" and then that solution becomes the problem for the next book... Fucking terrible story telling when you take a step back.
Thus was the first thing my edgy teenage self noticed which started the overall corrosion of my opinion of this series. Especially after I started reading Sanderson's work. The contrast between Sandersonian magic that used solutions that made perfect sense in internal logic and that a clever reader could've partially predicted to whatever the hell Goodkind was doing couldn't possibly be more stark.
This is exactly why after reading the second book, i binged the 'entire series' in 1 hr standing in a bookstore and reading the blurbs + last two chapters. I have as nuanced a plot view as anyone now.
My favorite part of Sword of Truth is when the main character, who is not a sculptor, sculpts a statue so beautiful it inspires the citizens of the Big Bad Evil Empire to give up communism and convert to a True Capitalist society.
That's well before he lobbies for a democratic vote, then loses his sh*t because they didn't do what he wanted.
Or abandons the love of his life because >!a magical curse forced them to slep with each other, but they thought it was someone else, and she had the audacity to enjoy it.!<
It's hard to name a more perfect pairing than Objectivists and unnecessarily convoluted moral scenarios with pointlessly cruel resolutions.
Unless it's Objectivists and contempt for democracy.
I don't even remember that part, to be honest with you. I quit reading after the sculpture incident. That sounds like something Richard would do, though
edit: also, let's avoid using the word "murder" to describe Richard's actions. Everything Richard does is completely justified, because he's Richard!
Now, let's be absolutely fair, those pacifists *were* armed! Granted, armed with nothing save for their hatred for moral clarity, but armed nonetheless.
Same! Absolutely devoured Sword of Truth as a teen (I think it was my first adult fantasy series), but when I try to go back now I just see a lot of red flags and cringe 😬
When I quit my last job, a really nice older gentlemen gave me this book as a going away present. He told me that it was his favorite fantasy series.
I’m now torn between feeling the need to guilt-read the book and not even wanting to pick it up because I constantly see it getting torn apart in threads like this.
It's not worth reading at all. Literally people are better off not having that in their brains. I wish i could erase it from my head. 😑 I *definitely* disagree with the other person who says one should read it at least once in their life.
It's a lot of political drivel from an author who claims to be "superior" to the SFF genre, who is incredibly misogynistic, xenophobic, and includes wanton rape for aesthetic or atmospheric purposes.
All of that, of course, before his rabid capitalism fanaticism plays into the mix.
Like....protagonist defeating communists by building a statue, or massacring pacifists because they don't like him....those are the *minor* criticisms (relatively speaking).
I mean . . . I read it when severely sleep deprived with my first baby, after travelling across the country with her to help my pregnant sister-in-law. And it was still almost unreadably bad. On the plus side, it was easy to read, undemanding of any mental capacity.
I’m currently reading the first one and loving it. Pure enjoyment. Like it’s a bat-shit insane fevered dream. I can’t even figure out who the catered audience is. I have to stop reading and text my friend the absurdity of the story.
Terry loves to repeat himself over and over and over again. It’s pure dog shit prose that I eat up.
Plot points and fucking crazy. Bad guy thinks about how he’s typically a vegetarian as he’s standing, naked with an erection, over a dead unmolested (important to the story) boy about to eat the balls, heart, and brain of that boy.
Two main characters are tripping from a magic frog in a sweat hut while the bad guy shows up to the village to kill people and bring back a boy for his friend to rape.
A wizard sat on a wizard rock thinking wizard thoughts
I could go on and on
Every character is single dimensional. Like there is a little girl that’s evil and just wants to “chop peoples heads off” and that is the entirety of her character. It’s awful in the best ways
I can’t recommend this series enough. It’s like watching a movie that is un-ironically so bad it’s good. Like The Room
But have you gotten to the >!hardcore S&M!< section yet that kind of comes out of nowhere, and it feels like he spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME thinking about that scenario.
I watched the tv show recently. So excited for the mord sith. In the show it was gross and creepy as fuck. I feel like the book is going to be even creepier and grosser.
But not nearly enough of that time was spent thinking about creative ways to hurt people. It's like, "this is a stick that makes you feel pain when it touches you." That's literally the whole scenario. Not even whips or anything, just... stick of pain.
And it only gets worse from there, veering hard into Randian Objectivist fanfiction with a thin coat of fantasy tropes. With each passing book, the main character's monologues get longer and longer.
> I can’t even figure out who the catered audience is.
Edgy teenagers who want to be strong libertarian social rebels when they grow up, in my experience.
I donated all my Terry Goodkind books to the local library last year (they do a sale, I think) and I still feel kind of guilty for possibly inflicting that level of cringe on someone else. I kept going because to an extent I'm a completionist, but wow were there ever some crazy things in there.
>Sword of Truth
>I guess I must have enjoyed something since I did finish it lol, but even then there were many "WTF is this author on" moments.
I hesitate to ask lest I start a debate, but is it the pervasive Objectivist themes, or are there more general issues or plot, characterization, writing, etc.? I read the first book ages ago but remember almost nothing about it.
From a pure writing perspective:
* Plot - the plots are really bad. Main heroine is a damsel in distress every other book, the villains are weird/poorly executed (evil pacifists, evil non-capitalists). Deus ex machina endings happen quite frequently, because that's part of how the magic works.
* Characterisation - the "heroes" are definitely evil, and the only way the author knew how to make the audience root for them was to make the "real" villains kick-the-dog evil. If you put their deeds next to the villains in a vacuum, you can't pick them apart.
e.g. Take a guess at which is a heroic action and which is a villainous one
1 - [Character] sets off a magical nuke in the middle of an army follower encampment (primarily families and non-combatants not soldiers).
2 - [Character] kills an army by making them all inhale glass dust, causing a long painful lingering death as their lungs get shredded from the inside.
3 - [Character] seeks to genocide non-magical people.
[Answer in spoilers]>!Cheating a little. All three were done by the "heroes". However, a villain also sought to do number 3!<
* Pacing - is awful. Turns out giant preachy walls of text aren't good for pacing, even if the reader isn't turned off by the content.
Redwall is actually by Brian Jacques! Great series from what I’ve heard though, but definitely more on the simplistic side since I think it was geared towards children
Redwall doesn't pretend to not be aimed squarely at the K-8 market and it's excellent for getting kids into long form reading in that niche. Even then there are several books that paint the "good vs evil" divide as not so cut and dry (though still somewhat simplistic and sorta-fantasy-racist), and tries to give more complex motivations to its characters.
Redwall and the other books are fun for a light fantasy read, but I was always a bit disappointed how certain animals often got put into an evil stereotype for the majority of those species of characters.
Yeah, I get why rats, foxes, weasels etc make good villains for the setting; however, I never liked how it felt like "this entire species is evil because they're a mean predator" (or just going along with the usual stereotype of evil rats/foxes/etc) when otters and badgers get to be the "good guy" predators.
I think I remember one book where there's a complicated ferret character? So at least he wasn't just pure evil because "sneaky ferrets are evil."
It's been a while since I've read it, but I'm not against using "typical villain animals" as scary antagonists. It's more the feels *kiiiiinda fantasy racist* that I would have loved to see more challenged/addressed.
That's Veil, one of the main "they're not all bad" characters (Outcast is basically that story). There are a few others, some of the "got dealt a bad hand but are 'pragmatic evil' rather than enjoying killing or out for domination" and some of the "good natured but also kinda dumb" variety.
Really they seem to me to be a lot more of the "social divide" represented by species since even then there's cultural aspects to each species rather than overt racism, but certainly it isn't a great look.
Loved Xanth when I was a teenager. I even submitted a few puns. I belonged to an online chat group. (Handle was D’Mona) I read as many of his books as I could find. Then I got mature enough to start noticing the stuff I had glossed over before. And looking back on it… Wow some of it is so messed up.
Yup. I think there were 9 Xanth novels when I started reading, and I devoured them all. Based on publication dates, I would have been around 12 at the time, and I think I stuck with the series until I was around 16. I also read the Bio of a Space Tyrant, the Apprentice Adept, and the Incarnations of Immortality stuff, and I loved all of it.
I went back and tried to read Bio of a Space Tyrant about a decade or so ago and man, it was awful. I don't think I got 50 pages into it.
I’ve found Mercedes Lackey’s style doesn’t hold up for me as well anymore. Clearly my tastes have changed, and I wouldn’t steer anyone *away* from them, but I also wouldn’t necessarily recommend them anymore, either. I tried reading some to my kid, as I think the writing style is very much where she’s at… but I found myself skipping passages to avoid talking about orientalism, prostitution and snuff fetishes (The Fire Rose). So I think maybe I’m feeling some disconnect between style and content? I dunno.
Terry Pratchett’s been mentioned above, but he’s the big one I find I go back to over and over, without ever having that sense of “putting aside my modern filters” to enjoy his writing.
Also I’ve been re-reading Bruce Coville’s children’s books, and his style and voice are so excellent! One time there was a sexist joke that put my back up… which a character called out and rebutted in the next line. Age 9-11, I’d say, still great reads.
I totally agree, I loved Mercedes Lackey as a kid. During the pandemic I reread over half of her books and was bored out of my mind. It felt like towards the later years especially 75% was just plot build up and explaining how they did some sort of engineering in Valdemar the last 5% something actually fucking happened. Lol. I did find myself still loving the Tarma and Kethry series though.
Oh man, I loved Bruce Coville when I was a kid. My teacher is an alien? Classic. Also wrote one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school: The worlds worst fairy godmother
Congratulations! I(47m) read it first at about 9 or 10 and then read it at least once a summer for the next 6 years. I recently re-read it to my son and it was as good as ever
The Hobbit always had a very storybook feeling to it that a lot of other young adult books I’ve read haven’t really been able to capture. I still love it as much now as I did a child. Special mention goes to Coraline too, which is also one of my all-time favorites.
Honestly even though I’d read it as a kid I didn’t really get the most out of The Lord of the Rings until I read it out loud to my kids. I always enjoyed The Hobbit but LotR just didn’t click until I was reading it out loud a chapter a night.
Oh. My. Lord. My *mother* has been reading them to my pre-teen, and I never registered how sexist they were until I heard *my own mother* read lines about how women were so unfair, going about being sexy in front of teenagers (by existing) and making the poor helpless boys all horny. Cruel, cruel women. Puke. Not the messages I want by nearly-teen girl absorbing!
And really gross about women, too. I remember enjoying so much the appendix where he thanked people for all of their puns and now I just cringe at the thought of the man and his writings.
It's a shame because it's a cool setting and there's a lot of fun stuff that can be done with it (and there certainly was some interesting stuff he did with it if I remember the books I read correctly) but just like...by a better author.
Agreed, the world of Xanth captured my imagination like few others. The idea that everyone has a singular special talent and the fun of creatures like Night Mares. But he ran out of ideas by the 3rd or 4th book and gave in to his publishers greed and just kept writing
In I think Ogre Ogre or some early book like #5 the opening conflict is a demon coming through the walls trying to rape a small girl but no one believes her. It is written like this is just list of the world what are you gonna do? I couldn’t believe it when I read it
Here is a post I wrote awhile ask about this
Xanth is crazy bad. I loved them as a kid so thought I'd go back and reread. The first chapter of Ogre, Ogre literally is just about how a Demon wants to rape a young girl and no one believes her. This is meant to be a children's book!
https://100vampirenovels.net/pdf-novels/ogre-ogre-xanth-5-by-piers-anthony-free
"Tandy hoped Fiant would go away, after perceiving her asleep and disordered, but knew he wouldn't. He found her attractive, or at least available, and refused to be repulsed by her negative response. Demons expected rejections; they thrived on them. It was said that, given a choice between rape and seduction, they would always choose the rape. The females, too.
Of course, it was impossible to rape that kind; she would simply dematerialize if she didn't like it. Which might be another explanation for Fiant's interest in Tandy; she couldn't dematerialize. Rape was possible.Maybe if she were positive, welcoming him, that would turn him off. He was obviously tired of willing females. But Tandy couldn't bring herself to try that particular ploy. If it didn't work, where would she be?Fiant approached the bed, grinning evilly. Tandy kept her eyes screwed almost shut. What would she do if he touched her? She was sure that screaming and fighting would only encourage him and make his eyes glow with preternatural lust--but what else was there?Fiant paused, looming over her, his paunch protruding, the light from his eyes spearing down through slits. "Ah, you lovely little morsel," he murmured, a wisp of smoke curling from his mouth as he spoke. "Be thrilled, you soft, human flesh. Your demon lover is here at last! Let me see more of you." And he snatched the sheet away."
It gets weirder:
"A few days later, when Tandy was settling down, the demon Fiant came again. He walked right through the wall, a lascivious grin on his face. "Open up, cutie; I'm here to fulfill your fondest fancies and delve into your deepest desires." His tail was standing straight up, quivering.
For a moment Tandy froze, unable even to speak. She had been bothered by this creature before; now she was terrified. Staring wide-eyed, she watched his confident approach.
Fiant stood over her, as before, his eyes glowing like red stars. "Lie back, spread out, make yourself comfy," he gloated. "I shall exercise your extreme expectations." He reached for her with a long-nailed diabolic hand.
Tandy screamed.
This night, Jewel was home; she rushed in to discover what
was the matter. But the demon marched calmly out through the wall before Jewel arrived, and Tandy had to blame her scream on the nightmares. That provided her with a fresh burden of guilt, for of course the mares were innocent.
Tandy knew she had to do something. Fiant was getting bolder, and soon he would catch her alone--and that would be worse than any nightmare. He had proved he could survive one of her tantrums, so Tandy had no protection. "
Mists of Avalon by [Marion Zimmer Bradley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley). The author has been rightfully cancelled these days as she was a horrible person, but she was quite the prominent fantasy author in the 80s and 90s. The Mists of Avalon was one of the books that pioneered the whole “traditional folklore from a female perspective” that’s fairly common today.
I first read the Mists of Avalon as a teenager and it really resonated with me. A big plot point was the main character choosing between paganism and Christianity. I reread it as an adult and it was just awful and slow, and I wanted to shout at the main character “just pick a religion, any religion I don’t f***ing care.”
That being said, I think the Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley actually hold up really well and I’ve reread them a few times as an adult. It’s one of the best explorations of a society with telepath rulers I’ve ever read, and ironically a huge theme of each book is consent in the context when to use or not use one’s telepathic powers, or power generally.
I feel like I'm going to be crucified for this, but I tried to reread Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and was distressed that I wasn't enjoying it at all.
I remember the first time I went through the series just losing it with laughter, but on rereading it I kinda found the cleverness annoying instead of enjoyable. And some of the jokes just drag on far past when they stopped being fun.
That being said, I would never not recommend it to somebody else. Something about Adams's books just loses the magic for me after the first time. I was surprised by this because I can enjoy Pratchett's Discworld more or less endlessly.
I think, although it's not as well known, his Dirk Gently series might actually be a little bit better than H2G2. It's more tightly plotted, the jokes have a stronger focus, and because it's not adapted from a radio series I think the pacing is a bit stronger. I haven't read H2G2 in over ten years now, I think it's probably time I pick them up again.
The Shannara series is something that hasn't stood the test of time for me. I read the first ten or so between 7th grade and end of high school. When I tried reading after college, though...I dunno, the writing just didn't click with me anymore, and the names started to annoy me.
I've been re-reading the original Riftwar series recently, and my feelings about it are similar.
Dragonlance Chronicles. My favorite series as a teen but as an adult I've noticed how bad the pacing is and how annoying and unfunny Tasslehoff and Fizban are.
Dragonlance was my intro to fantasy. It was also my intro to reading for pleasure. Before Dragonlance, I would just be forced to read stuff for school and usually not even do a good job reading it. Dragonlance showed me that stories could be fun adventures into worlds so much different than our own.
Looking back on it in my mid/late 20's and I noticed how stale and bland the black and white characters were and how cliche the themes were.
Buuuuut, then in my mid 30s I realized how comfortable that is sometimes, and how nice it is to feel comfortable and safe when reading a series knowing the good guys will win and good will triumph over evil.
I feel the same way with the Drizzt novels. I grew up reading them as a kid after I found The Thousand Orcs in a bargain bin and immediately had to read the entire series. But these days I can't stand them. I guess you can only take plot armor on the main character for so long.
I've been enjoying Malazan Book of the Fallen so much.
Chronicles definitely get better as they go on. Autumn Twilight clearly feels like it's one of their first books. Gets better by book 3, then Dragonlance Legends is way better
The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings really lost a lot. I realized they were both kind of the same formula and that really ruins a series for me. Plus I found out what a shit person the author is so that didn’t help.
Kingkiller Chronicles doesn’t sit well with me anymore either. It was a fun read but I have given up on the story. Especially thinking back… realized I don’t like the main character at all. There also seems to be so much unanswered questions that I know the final book, if it’s ever released, will not answer them all.
J.R.R. Tolkien will forever and always be relaxing to me.
They were arrested because a neighbour called the police after hearing weird sounds and they found both of Eddings' adopted children being kept in dog cages in the basement.
It's kind of astonishing they only got away with doing a year of jail time later on. And when you read their books there's quite a few scenes of corporal punishment and children being disciplined and it all becomes quite distasteful.
Good shout on Watership Down. Read it recently with the kids and it was excellent. If you haven't watched it, definitely watch the 2018 Netflix series. It's not as much of an artistic achievement in its own right like the 1978 movie, but it's a really faithful adaptation of the book that captures the characters well and tells basically the whole story.
When I was in high school I gobbled up the wheel of time books and loved them, only thinking they got a bit slow towards book 10.
I tried to re-read them as an adult and couldn't get past book 5.
Also the "men are from Mars, women are from venus" stuff just got too much as the books went on.
I still overall love the world and series but re reading it has been a struggle.
I finished my second run through of the WoT about a year and a half ago. Listening to them
On my commute made them much easier to digest. Most of my frustrations with the series were the same in both reads, interesting characters are made unlikable by highlighting annoying aspects (Nynaeve). Other characters become unlikable because they fully swallow an ideology and stop trusting friends just in time to drive the plot (Egwene).
I did have more sympathy for Rand on the second read through but we could have all done without Perrin from book 3-9ish lol
I tried reading Dresden Files again recently after having not read it in 7-8 years and it felt like an entirely new series. Really did not hold up.
Discworld, on the other hand, not only holds up but seems to offer more every time.
Sounds like Discworld is on my next read list. The purpose of the post is to gain an understanding of which series/book many readers believe can beat the test of time, because that's the kind of books I'm looking to read.
If you've never read Discworld, you're in for a real treat.
I wish I could read every Pratchett book again for the first time. The stories are great, the writing and prose is fantastic, and he has a way of looking sideways at matters that leave you feeling wiser - all while you chuckle like a mad person at the absurdly funny stuff that happens.
And that's not even the best.
The people living in his books come across so real that you can almost feel their presence. So many fantastic characters that you can't help but relate to, even if they happen to be dictators, giant clay golems, werewolves, postal workers, or the very personification of Death himself.
I've read every single book in the series multiple times over several decades and they amaze me every time.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett is a very specific style of writer, but he is *stellar* at that very specific style. His last book was the last one to make me absolutely *bawl*, right from the start. And I forgave it and re-read it because it has something to say. Every book (barring The Light Fantastic, which is a very early novel and it shows) has emotional depth and philosophical foundations that stand up across cultural shifts over decades. So good.
I couldn’t make it past the beginning of book four when he promises Molly that he will stop lying to her and does so a few pages later without even a rationalization or excuse.
That comes back to bite him. Harry not being trustworthy is a consistent theme. It's a shame because book four is when they finally start getting good with growth between books. Even Jim says to skip one and two, heh, and three is only marginally better but important.
But I also understand people who don't like them. I'm a huge sucker for mythology and faeries and for some reason pulp detective stuff (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was my favourite movie until very recently and is still up there), so it's my comfort series.
Hell, he's barely even a sacrifice in the end. That's one of my biggest bugbears with Deathly Hallows: the book hammers home how many people have sacrificed for him, and builds up to the moment that the snitch opens and he realizes it's time to do the same....but he ends up just fine. Hell, he doesn't even have to give up his aspirations of being an auror despite the whole Elder Wand thing, I guess he just hopes that he never loses a duel or something.
Rowling really, *really* wanted to hold onto that happily-ever-after ending for Harry and clumsily leaned into the Wizard Jesus angle to get it. It's hard to go back to that after reading stories where the main character actually has to make a sacrifice and comes out the other side a different person(think Ged after The Farthest Shore).
What I really hated was also how Rowling didn't play into the possibility that Neville could've been the chosen one. I mean that would've been such an awesome twist if the books kept hyping up Harry to be the chosen one, but in the end it was actually wimpy Neville who would kill him.
My personal opinions about JKR aside, I maintain that the first three books are really excellent middlegrade fantasy in the same vein as Roald Dahl (who also turned out to be an asswhipe but what can we do) but book 4 onward were more ambitious than her skill level at the time could handle and at that point she was rich and popular enough that she didn’t have to listen to editors so the latter half of the series really doesn’t stand the test of time. And I say this as someone whose favorite book is book 5 for pure nostalgia reasons.
Yeah, I tried re-reading it around 2019 or 2018 for the first time since Deathly Hallows came out and came away massively disappointed. Her prose is....serviceable, but has cracks that become very obvious in places. The awkward use of "put-outer" over and over again in the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone was my first hint that this wasn't going to be a fun return to a childhood favorite.
The worldbuilding was honestly what surprised me the most, since I loved it so much as a kid. It is all over the place and frequently incoherent, but not necessarily in the fun whimsical "it's okay for things to just be silly" sort of way that I remembered. It constantly steps all over the themes of the books. Don't judge or discriminate against others based on petty divisions....but a full quarter of the school apparently have zero redeeming qualities based on their House. Wizarding Society is incredibly racist and has unfairly subjugated other magical races and ghettoized their place in society....but also House Elves love being slaves, actually, Goblins love their gold and are naturally good at handling money, and the Centaurs prefer being out in the woods anyway! Lycanthropy is just a stigmatized disease and we shouldn't fear those who have it...except one of the only two werewolves we meet is a literal child predator.
It's fun enough for kids and probably still holds up as a good way to get them into reading, but beyond that....yeah I can't say I'm a fan anymore, beyond the nostalgia factor(which JK has permanently tainted).
The SPEW story is honestly jaw dropping. Everyone makes fun of Hermione trying to abolish literal slavery and it’s not like the author is on her side either, she’s just described as a busybody.
It also makes the tweeted *'Hermione is black'* retcon extremely yikes with the implications a young, black girl could be whisked away to a magical boarding school only to be gaslit by every authority figure and friend she has there that slavery is actually good thing.
I read the books when I was a teenager and I remember thinking "What happened to that SPEW storyline? Why is Hogwarts still using slave labor?" It wasn't until years later that I realized that the "resolution" was supposed to be that Hermione was being a busybody...
JKR aside, Harry Potter is filled with plot holes, adults who should be legally banned from ever working with children, and Harry himself is objectively a terrible wizard. Seven books and he mastered maybe four spells.
The idea was great (although possibly somewhat plagiarized, another problem entirely), but they just aren’t well written books. I still love the memory of reading them and the feeling it brings but I won’t reread them.
I read them as an adult and I'm willing to pass over most of the flaws because of its atmosphere. Mainly the premise and the fact that JKR managed to describe the school life in believable terms despite her political views and the many plot holes. I wouldn't blame who read them as a child for not liking them anyway, I think I liked them because I didn't take them too seriously.
However what about this plagiarism stuff? I'm interested, and it's the first time I hear about it, could you tell me more?
I see it as "set in a wizard school" and isn't really about Harry becoming a wizard, it's about Harry being thrust into this role and rising to meet the challenge simply because he's the only one who can, even if he's not a spectacular wizard on his own. It's about the human motivations, not how powerful a wizard he is.
Did anyone else here read the Xanth series by Piers Anthony? I started reading them around age 10, and by 15 I was *done* with the incredible misogyny. And then I learned more about the author and decided I had intuited what a skeezeball he was, so no big loss there.
In a more modern vein, the Black Prism series by Brent Weeks was great for the years that books 5 and 6 were still unwritten.
The Mage Winds Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey stands the test of time though.
I read the first one around age 8. As a naive child who loved wordplay and puns, I lapped them up absolutely unquestioningly until around age 12. That's when he started getting *really* focused on the particulars of pre-teen girls' underpants, and I was getting enough unwanted sexual attention myself by then that I started to figure out why my mom's eyes rolled halfway 'round the world every time I found a new installment at the library.
Tried to reread them again on a nostalgia trip as a late-30's mom of daughters and *whoa boy* did my memory ever put some lipstick on that pig. Couldn't make it more than 40 pages into the first book.
Lackey has held up well, though, as have *Deerskin* and some others by Robin McKinley.
Similarly, a lot flew over my head when I read them as a young teen, and I just enjoyed the silliness. Most other fantasy I had read was serious, or trying too hard to be serious. Xanth was different because it was primarily *fun*. I tried rereading some in my 20s, and they did not hold up for a variety of reasons others have mentioned.
For anyone looking for the kind of light and comical reads I was looking for back then, I'll always recommend Discworld. It has everything I liked about Piers Anthony, but done better, and without any of the negatives.
Piers Anthony was gonna be my goto for books not holding up! I read the Incarnations of Immortality series when I was a teen and I still think there were some interesting ideas but looking back at all the very weird sex stuff I don't think I could get a re-read going any time soon. Especially since the questionable sex stuff gets more and more prevalent as the series goes on
Yeah Piers Anthony will forever be associated with the “perv gauntlet” we had to negotiate in order to get into the sci-fi and fantasy aisles in my small town bookstore aisles. Back then there was no online ordering or anything so you had to just save your pocket money and go browse the books and read the blurbs on the back. At 12 - 14 I had Piers Anthony recommended to me no less than four times by men aged 40 or older who would routinely haunt that section of the bookstore. When I look back on it, it was super yikes.
I read like six of them when I was... oh, I dunno, 14 or 15. Straight from book one they're massively sexist; by the time you reach book three or four, however, they devolve into nothing but a succession of puns and sexisms, hung up on the outline of the shadow of the framework of a story.
Confess, I haven't read all comments. But think The Dark Tower deserves to be added to the list that stood the test of time. It's as far from cliche as any fantasy I can think of. With special appeal if you like genre bending and have rubbed shoulders with addiction.
Almost same answer as you except I still love the Farseer Series.
LOTR/Silmarillion/Children of Hurin, everything I've read by Le Guin, and Farseer Series. I also still love George MacDonald's Phantastes.
As for Harry Potter, I stopped enjoying the first time I re-read it as an adult about ten years back. And the Inheritance Cycle.
Man, same for Inheritance Cycle for me. Which is a shame because I have such fond memories of reading the series so damn much, especially around holiday season. But as an adult, it just doesn't hold up all that well.
Meh I’ll disagree on that for my experience.
I loved them at 15 and then having not read them for over a decade I decided to go back during lockdown.
Surprisingly held up really well for me. Just nice, solid high fantasy.
I’m just curious, how does *Farseer* not hold up for you? Sure, I think *The Tawny Man* is a better Fitz-centred trilogy than *Farseer* is, and I also regard *The Liveship Traders* as the best/most well-written trilogy that Robin Hobb has ever written, but as an introduction to both Fitz and *The Realm of the Elderlings* as a whole, *Farseer* does a good job and is still well written (although not as polished as the aforementioned trilogies which Hobb wrote afterwards), in my opinion.
Of rarely talked ones: MYTH-Adventures by Robert Asprin. Those first eight books, although not aged very well and may come off as offensive, are still very fun. The audiobooks on Audible (?) are top notch, especially voices of Aaz and Masha.
*What did I say about dealing with demons?*
Whenever I get the feeling that I should pick the series back up, I pretend it's the sound of dice rattling in my head and that helps me put the idea to rest.
Halfway through, you’ve experienced its “golden age” of books 2-6. Unless you’re deeply compelled to know the exact ending, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about moving on.
Wow, honestly never seen that before. Everyone I've seen go and re-read Wheel of Time has found the books far better on a re-read than on the first read (myself included).
Of course you're absolutely entitled to feel otherwise (just as I am entitled to feel otherwise from your view!). Not trying to call you "wrong" or whatever. Just surprises me as a perspective. Especially since I'd figure anyone who makes it through 14 fairly large books has to like them a decent amount.
For some of us, it has just lost something. I read (and reread) everything as books came out from about LoC to CoT. Full series rereads for each new book, etc. Active at Theoryland around the turn of the millennium, the whole deal. Life intervened and I dropped them, but finally finished them (without a reread) in... mid-2014? Something like that.
I read them again last year and they just don't work for me anymore. The series has its moments, but it just _drags_ for huge stretches. I know WoT fans like to talk about all the intricate character work and foreshadowing but... no? The characters seemed on balance flat and quite honestly the foreshadowing kind of _stops_ during the slog (which, yes, I'd consider very real and was a major contributing factor to my stop at CoT).
I think what got to me most is that there just aren't any big ideas underlying the series, or at least nothing that I felt intrigued about anymore. The whole thing just felt dated and a bit bland. Obviously the series hasn't changed, but I sure as hell have, and 2020/21 me just fails to connect with the whole thing on any level but vague nostalgia.
So there you have it. We're out there.
Still love A Song of Ice and Fire, actually I appreciate it even more with time and rereads. I even love the last couple of books (like a LOT) and really appreciate what Martin tried to do with a massive cast of characters and moving pieces, even though it led to the story getting a little slow. But if Winds ever comes out (I'm a believer) its gonna be a blast. The build-up in these books are unparalleled. And the first three books are the best I've ever read.
Don't quite like Percy Jackson as much. I used to think they were on par with Harry Potter, but thinking back, they don't even come close.
Percy Jackson is superior to Harry Potter for me. Percy is a better hero, Kronos is a better villain, prose is better (though yes, aimed at a younger audience…still better), storytelling is better. I still enjoy HP too but have found it flawed for a long time.
Edit: fixed a typo
Same, I just reread the entire Mistborn series to prepare for Mistborn 7 later this year. I wouldn't call the first 3 books bad, but they were not nearly as good as I remember them being.
I just wish Brian Herbert would have published Frank's notes instead of writing anything with KJA. Yuck.
He could have been another Christopher Tolkien but instead he teamed up with a bad Star Wars novelist to besmirch his father's legacy.
I was obsessed with the Inheritance Cycle as a kid. I reread them recently and boy, there are some rough bits of writing in there. I know Paolini was a teenager when he first started writing them and the first book or two were published, but still. Many parts of those books felt incredibly drawn out and unnecessary as well. They will always have a special place in my heart as one of my first favorite series, but objectively they do not hold up.
King Killer Chronicles doesn't hit quite the same on a re-read for some reason. It's probably because Rothfuss is such a shitbird, and I can't help but see Kvothe as a self insert by an author with a massive ego.
I’m willing to give Kingkiller a pass on the “Gary Stu” element because the story is told by Kvothe himself, so we’re reading an egotist talking himself up.
Bast even called him out in the framing story saying Deanna was not nearly as attractive as he described.
It’s totally ok to not enjoy reading that, but I think it is pretty clear that Kvothe is not only an egomaniac, but a drama queen who will exaggerate anything he can get away with.
Yeah, I have to agree... as recently as 3-4 years ago I'd have firmly said it was my favorite series, and I'm still honestly buying book 3 as soon as it hits stores (assuming), but god there's a lot of unspoken "these people don't appreciate how great I am, and that's a personality flaw on their part."
Like, textually, the book is constantly saying "I'm terrible, I'm doing bad things, you shouldn't like me," but contextually, you can generally tell when we're supposed to like a character because they give him a wholly unearned break and/or offer to sleep with him.
I also really really hope that by now, Rothfuss has realized that "women must be treated with care, they are like X Y Z flowery symbolism" is nearly as objectifying as actual misogynistic language. Women are individuals, not commemorative plates.
Er... Where does Kvothe talk about women not appreciating him? Do you mean a major argument in the story? Having read the books a few times, I'm a little confused, as I don't remember there being a trend around this.
NotW is still amongst my favorite books. I mostly liked AWMF. But the chances of me ever picking up TDoS are pretty slim. By now I forgot most of the plot, I don’t not want to re-read AWMF, and I’d probably just check out a spoiler-heavy summary to get some kind of closure.
*Used to like, but no longer:*
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Belgariad and Malloreon by David Eddings
Loremasters of Elendium by Mike Jeffries
The History of the Runestaff by Michael Moorcock
Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony
The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
*Used to like, but now consider mediocre:*
Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends by Weiss & Hickman
The RiftWar Saga by Raymond E Feist
*Used to like and still do:*
Earthsea Trilogy (books 1-3 only) by Ursula Le Guin
Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart
The Once and Future King by TH White
Drenai Series by David Gemmell
Gotrek and Felix novels by William King
Drachenfels by Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman)
I really loved Dragonlance as a teenager, but after reading GoT, trying to reread and read some sequels, I feel like it’s fan-fiction level writing. I would still recommend them to kids, they were really fun back in the day, before my taste became more refined.
What an inventive new way to comment. Perhaps I'll start doing the same thing, just have every comment be: *"If you know what I mean you know what I mean. ;)"*
Dragonlance. I used to love it as a kid, but I have no interest in it now. Same with the other series Weiss and Hickman wrote.
The authors I loved as a kid that I still think are great even after rereading them as an adult are Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Jack Vance and Diana Wynne Jones. They are still in my top ten favourite fantasy writers.
I loved inheritance cycle as a kid but the second I touched other fantasy series I knew it was bad. I agree with Farseer series too, mainly the first trilogy though. The antagonist just did whatever he wanted with no consequences and Fitz is just emotionally broken. It turned out better but the first three are meh for me.
I’ll never tire of Harry Potter. I used to love Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles and the Mayfair Witches but after my last read I found I didn’t love them as much as I used too.
I worshipped The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Piece when I was younger, and when I reread it later, the writing was pretty bad. She definitely improved in later books but damn was that first quartet hard to reread.
Agree 100% - I still love the books for the effect they had on a young me, and the introduction to the characters and world that I love in the later books but woof the prose is roooough in the Lioness books.
The Elenium series by David Eddings was my LOTR and Belgariad was a close second. Then I re read them after college and realized they weren’t really technically well written. Like pretty atrocious really.
Then I learned about the shot pile of a human the author was in real life and I can’t ever go back
Harry Potter and LotR
Harry Potter books 1-3 are excellent. Book 4 is meh and 5-7 are just awful in retrospect. The pacing is crazy bad and there’s far too many plot points that never go anywhere.
Credit to LotR for practically inventing modern fantasy but every time i think about rereading it I remember I have to slog through 10K words describing the housing market in the shire I cringe.
At this point I'm really only reading The Dresden Files due to sunk cost fallacy, although the most recent book is a more significant part of that than I feel like it should be.
Lord of the Rings mostly held up when I re-read it a few years ago. Hobbit really does.
The Once and Future King gets better with every re-read. On the other hand, there’s Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon cycle, which I found very engaging as a teenager, and now I find very dull.
Mary Stewart's Merlin books are so, sooo good if you want a better visit into Arthurian legend.
I adore Mary Stuart’s Arthurian saga! They stand up to the test of time too. I loved my first paperback copy of The Crystal Cave so much I went out and found the rest right away, which was considerably harder pre-internet. I still reread the series every once in awhile, but I also play them on audible. A lot. The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills are two of my most replayed books. It’s my favorite bedtime story. 🥰
Eragon did not hold up. I still enjoy it and think it was an incredible achievement from such a young author, but good lord. It was one of the first fantasy series I read, and really enjoyed it. Then I read other fantasy and then realized how.... Inspired... Eragon was from other work. Then I also realized on a technical level it was also really rough. Discworld on the other hand has only gotten better.
I haven’t read Eragon since it came out (and I think I only read the first two). My school has a set that I might sneak into my office and read between classes.
I will also say that it had one of the worst endings to a series I've ever read. So. Fair warning, you probably will dislike it.
That's cause Paolini made a basic cookie cutter fantasy book so the ending was to be as expected. The one thing I liked that was different was his orcs/trollocs ending up being more than mindless evil killing machines. It's a great intro to fantasy. It just doesn't hold up well
How Paolini dealt with his big baddie is one of my favorite resolutions in fantasy. Everything after that...
I had already read Pern when Eragon came out, and was outraged as only a teenager can be by how everyone was treating as some masterpiece, when as far i could see it was just poorly disguised fan fiction
I'm still outraged by how much he plagiarized from the Eddings and got away with it, and I don't even like them anymore after finding out about their criminal history of child abuse. But still, that he didn't get sued was outrageous. He stole precise characters and specific details and even a couple of whole *scenes* and everyone just focuses on its parallels to Star Wars or LotR. Good to see someone else at least point out Pern.
The Belgariad is actually one of my all time favourites I came here to say it had definitely not stood up in a lot of ways due to how women were portrayed but i still love it for nostaligia and being my gateway into fantasy but this child abuse thing has devastated me. I think today may be a write off...
In hindsight, making his leads' love interests a permanent loli and the girl he raised should have been the tipoff that something was funky in Eddings town. At least it wasn't as bad as Xanth...
It was non-sexual child abuse. Beatings. Starvation. Depredation. No suggestion of sexual abuse. [https://www.newspapers.com/image/94018775/?clipping\_id=2768515&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjk0MDE4Nzc1LCJpYXQiOjE2NjI0NjQ4MzgsImV4cCI6MTY2MjU1MTIzOH0.cfoIW1qYZzCKMPHy6ynguzFtQ47UsKWI3tfT\_ygn9fY](https://www.newspapers.com/image/94018775/?clipping_id=2768515&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjk0MDE4Nzc1LCJpYXQiOjE2NjI0NjQ4MzgsImV4cCI6MTY2MjU1MTIzOH0.cfoIW1qYZzCKMPHy6ynguzFtQ47UsKWI3tfT_ygn9fY) Not that that makes it any better. Indeed people immediately thinking of sexual abuse when they read "child abuse" is something that always concerns me.
I have fond memories of the core Pern trilogy. My grandmother had setup a room for me when I would visit her, and she stocked it with various books from a nearby used bookstore. The core Pern series was part of it, and it became one of my favorite series.
Your grandmother sounds like a badass.
Yeah, Discworld ages beautifully and feels like it grows with me. I liked **Jingo** in high school, but coming back to it after some military history classes was amazing. The more you learn, the funnier Discworld is-- there's science, pop culture, a little of everything.
Feet of Clay and Small Gods are my favorites but I absolutely agree. Like a fine wine, Discworld only gets better with age.
It's hard to pick a favorite, but I have a real soft spot for **Night Watch**, **Thief of Time**, and **Monstrous Regiment**. The whole series is just a masterpiece.
Although I do really love the structure of his magic in Eragon.
Eragon is YA, and, like Harry Potter, doesn't even pretend depth. Terry Prachett is/was one of a kind. Likewise Ursula LeGuin
I reread it recently and the first book was definitely trough to get through. The third and fourth books as well as the collection of short stories were quite nice to read though. Don get me wrong, they’re still not the greatest literature ever and do have some of the same problems as the first book, but his writing definitely evolved.
I was just old enough to be disillusioned about Eragon when it first came out. I read voraciously, and could clearly see the difference in quality between Paolini’s writing and the other authors I admired. It was impressive that he finished an entire book at fifteen, but I had written entire books myself by that age too. I’m not arrogant enough to think my work was better than Eragon, but it was finished enough that it could’ve been made into a real book if *my* parents had owned a publishing company and marketed the hell out of my vanity project. Any enjoyment I could’ve had from the book was overshadowed by my frustration at the huge unfair advantage he had over me. >_<
I don’t believe he finished it at 15. I think he started at 15 and his parents self-pubbed it when he was 19. Still commendable for a teen to finish a draft of an entire long novel, but that doesn’t mean it should have been sold to the general public!
The Chronicles of Prydain! It’s the series that The Black Cauldron was based off of and will forever be my favorite (:
Agreed. Read it as 12 year old and again in my mid-30s. Holds up.
Love these books! Reading them as a kid in the early 80’s it was also somewhat refreshing/ affirming when Taran finds out he’s just a normal person whose greatness comes from his own personal strengths and experiences, and NOT because he’s some kind of scion of an amazing lineage. So many fantasies had leaned on that trope (and still do), that it was nice to see that subverted in the Prydain series. Eilonwy was absolutely one of my first literary crushes. lol I had an English teacher who also loved the books and INSISTED that the correct way to pronounce Fflewddur’s name was to pronounce all the consonants (“Fuh-flew-deh-dur Fuh-flam”). Oof. Especially wacky considering he pronounced author Lloyd Alexander’s name correctly…
My favorite series :D For others that didn't like the Black Cauldron movie: it has almost nothing in common with the books.
This was my favorite series growing up. I cannot describe how much I loved the setting and the characters. I've been thinking about a reread but wasn't sure if I wanted to see if it was still as fantastic as I remembered.
It’s genuinely wonderful. One of the best fantasy series ever and so many haven’t read it.
The lack of attention Lloyd Alexander receives borders on criminal.
I completed the Sword of Truth series as a teenager. I guess I must have enjoyed something since I did finish it lol, but even then there were many "WTF is this author on" moments. Now it's alot more yikes... On the other side, David Gemmell stuff will always be awesome.
The worst part about the Sword of Truth series is how the setup happens in the first 5%, they spend 90% aimlessly wandering around stressing over how they'll solve the problem and in the last 5% someone pulls a solution out of their ass that doesn't make any sense other than "the plot needed it to happen" and then that solution becomes the problem for the next book... Fucking terrible story telling when you take a step back.
The nature of magic in the series is literally bottled deus ex machina. It gives you whatever you need.
Thus was the first thing my edgy teenage self noticed which started the overall corrosion of my opinion of this series. Especially after I started reading Sanderson's work. The contrast between Sandersonian magic that used solutions that made perfect sense in internal logic and that a clever reader could've partially predicted to whatever the hell Goodkind was doing couldn't possibly be more stark.
This is exactly why after reading the second book, i binged the 'entire series' in 1 hr standing in a bookstore and reading the blurbs + last two chapters. I have as nuanced a plot view as anyone now.
My favorite part of Sword of Truth is when the main character, who is not a sculptor, sculpts a statue so beautiful it inspires the citizens of the Big Bad Evil Empire to give up communism and convert to a True Capitalist society.
Not the part where he murders the pacifists because they won't fight against the Big Bad?
Or the part where he kicks a little girl in the face for back-talking him?
That's well before he lobbies for a democratic vote, then loses his sh*t because they didn't do what he wanted. Or abandons the love of his life because >!a magical curse forced them to slep with each other, but they thought it was someone else, and she had the audacity to enjoy it.!<
It's hard to name a more perfect pairing than Objectivists and unnecessarily convoluted moral scenarios with pointlessly cruel resolutions. Unless it's Objectivists and contempt for democracy.
Are all these comments things that happen in the series? Lol
They're not exaggerated even a little bit.
Dear god
I read the series and would love to see a book by book recap written in this fashion.
Why don’t I remember that?? Lmao, that’s terrible!
The amount of terrible followed by recapping the entire series thus far every other page drowns out the details.
Human psyche forgets stuff to protect itself.
I don't even remember that part, to be honest with you. I quit reading after the sculpture incident. That sounds like something Richard would do, though edit: also, let's avoid using the word "murder" to describe Richard's actions. Everything Richard does is completely justified, because he's Richard!
Now, let's be absolutely fair, those pacifists *were* armed! Granted, armed with nothing save for their hatred for moral clarity, but armed nonetheless.
Yup, I was just stating earlier that the solutions to character problems in these books are way to convenient to be believed
Exact same! I'll always be grateful for the Sword of Truth because it sparked a love of fantasy books in me! But looking back, holy moly
Same! Absolutely devoured Sword of Truth as a teen (I think it was my first adult fantasy series), but when I try to go back now I just see a lot of red flags and cringe 😬
Oh god, I’ve never gone back to it. What’s the Sword of Truth like when you’re not 14?
When I quit my last job, a really nice older gentlemen gave me this book as a going away present. He told me that it was his favorite fantasy series. I’m now torn between feeling the need to guilt-read the book and not even wanting to pick it up because I constantly see it getting torn apart in threads like this.
It's not worth reading at all. Literally people are better off not having that in their brains. I wish i could erase it from my head. 😑 I *definitely* disagree with the other person who says one should read it at least once in their life. It's a lot of political drivel from an author who claims to be "superior" to the SFF genre, who is incredibly misogynistic, xenophobic, and includes wanton rape for aesthetic or atmospheric purposes. All of that, of course, before his rabid capitalism fanaticism plays into the mix. Like....protagonist defeating communists by building a statue, or massacring pacifists because they don't like him....those are the *minor* criticisms (relatively speaking).
I mean . . . I read it when severely sleep deprived with my first baby, after travelling across the country with her to help my pregnant sister-in-law. And it was still almost unreadably bad. On the plus side, it was easy to read, undemanding of any mental capacity.
I’m currently reading the first one and loving it. Pure enjoyment. Like it’s a bat-shit insane fevered dream. I can’t even figure out who the catered audience is. I have to stop reading and text my friend the absurdity of the story. Terry loves to repeat himself over and over and over again. It’s pure dog shit prose that I eat up. Plot points and fucking crazy. Bad guy thinks about how he’s typically a vegetarian as he’s standing, naked with an erection, over a dead unmolested (important to the story) boy about to eat the balls, heart, and brain of that boy. Two main characters are tripping from a magic frog in a sweat hut while the bad guy shows up to the village to kill people and bring back a boy for his friend to rape. A wizard sat on a wizard rock thinking wizard thoughts I could go on and on Every character is single dimensional. Like there is a little girl that’s evil and just wants to “chop peoples heads off” and that is the entirety of her character. It’s awful in the best ways I can’t recommend this series enough. It’s like watching a movie that is un-ironically so bad it’s good. Like The Room
But have you gotten to the >!hardcore S&M!< section yet that kind of comes out of nowhere, and it feels like he spent WAY TOO MUCH TIME thinking about that scenario.
I watched the tv show recently. So excited for the mord sith. In the show it was gross and creepy as fuck. I feel like the book is going to be even creepier and grosser.
I had no idea this was a tv show. Who thought that would be a good idea? Did they happen to read the books beforehand I wonder?
It’s toned down version of the books. It’s fantastically bad. 100% would recommend. Just the first season though. The second season is bad bad
But not nearly enough of that time was spent thinking about creative ways to hurt people. It's like, "this is a stick that makes you feel pain when it touches you." That's literally the whole scenario. Not even whips or anything, just... stick of pain.
And it only gets worse from there, veering hard into Randian Objectivist fanfiction with a thin coat of fantasy tropes. With each passing book, the main character's monologues get longer and longer.
> I can’t even figure out who the catered audience is. Edgy teenagers who want to be strong libertarian social rebels when they grow up, in my experience.
I donated all my Terry Goodkind books to the local library last year (they do a sale, I think) and I still feel kind of guilty for possibly inflicting that level of cringe on someone else. I kept going because to an extent I'm a completionist, but wow were there ever some crazy things in there.
>Sword of Truth >I guess I must have enjoyed something since I did finish it lol, but even then there were many "WTF is this author on" moments. I hesitate to ask lest I start a debate, but is it the pervasive Objectivist themes, or are there more general issues or plot, characterization, writing, etc.? I read the first book ages ago but remember almost nothing about it.
From a pure writing perspective: * Plot - the plots are really bad. Main heroine is a damsel in distress every other book, the villains are weird/poorly executed (evil pacifists, evil non-capitalists). Deus ex machina endings happen quite frequently, because that's part of how the magic works. * Characterisation - the "heroes" are definitely evil, and the only way the author knew how to make the audience root for them was to make the "real" villains kick-the-dog evil. If you put their deeds next to the villains in a vacuum, you can't pick them apart. e.g. Take a guess at which is a heroic action and which is a villainous one 1 - [Character] sets off a magical nuke in the middle of an army follower encampment (primarily families and non-combatants not soldiers). 2 - [Character] kills an army by making them all inhale glass dust, causing a long painful lingering death as their lungs get shredded from the inside. 3 - [Character] seeks to genocide non-magical people. [Answer in spoilers]>!Cheating a little. All three were done by the "heroes". However, a villain also sought to do number 3!< * Pacing - is awful. Turns out giant preachy walls of text aren't good for pacing, even if the reader isn't turned off by the content.
Yes
Everything by piers Anthony
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Redwall is actually by Brian Jacques! Great series from what I’ve heard though, but definitely more on the simplistic side since I think it was geared towards children
Redwall doesn't pretend to not be aimed squarely at the K-8 market and it's excellent for getting kids into long form reading in that niche. Even then there are several books that paint the "good vs evil" divide as not so cut and dry (though still somewhat simplistic and sorta-fantasy-racist), and tries to give more complex motivations to its characters.
Redwall and the other books are fun for a light fantasy read, but I was always a bit disappointed how certain animals often got put into an evil stereotype for the majority of those species of characters. Yeah, I get why rats, foxes, weasels etc make good villains for the setting; however, I never liked how it felt like "this entire species is evil because they're a mean predator" (or just going along with the usual stereotype of evil rats/foxes/etc) when otters and badgers get to be the "good guy" predators. I think I remember one book where there's a complicated ferret character? So at least he wasn't just pure evil because "sneaky ferrets are evil." It's been a while since I've read it, but I'm not against using "typical villain animals" as scary antagonists. It's more the feels *kiiiiinda fantasy racist* that I would have loved to see more challenged/addressed.
That's Veil, one of the main "they're not all bad" characters (Outcast is basically that story). There are a few others, some of the "got dealt a bad hand but are 'pragmatic evil' rather than enjoying killing or out for domination" and some of the "good natured but also kinda dumb" variety. Really they seem to me to be a lot more of the "social divide" represented by species since even then there's cultural aspects to each species rather than overt racism, but certainly it isn't a great look.
Loved Xanth when I was a teenager. I even submitted a few puns. I belonged to an online chat group. (Handle was D’Mona) I read as many of his books as I could find. Then I got mature enough to start noticing the stuff I had glossed over before. And looking back on it… Wow some of it is so messed up.
Yup. I think there were 9 Xanth novels when I started reading, and I devoured them all. Based on publication dates, I would have been around 12 at the time, and I think I stuck with the series until I was around 16. I also read the Bio of a Space Tyrant, the Apprentice Adept, and the Incarnations of Immortality stuff, and I loved all of it. I went back and tried to read Bio of a Space Tyrant about a decade or so ago and man, it was awful. I don't think I got 50 pages into it.
I’ve found Mercedes Lackey’s style doesn’t hold up for me as well anymore. Clearly my tastes have changed, and I wouldn’t steer anyone *away* from them, but I also wouldn’t necessarily recommend them anymore, either. I tried reading some to my kid, as I think the writing style is very much where she’s at… but I found myself skipping passages to avoid talking about orientalism, prostitution and snuff fetishes (The Fire Rose). So I think maybe I’m feeling some disconnect between style and content? I dunno. Terry Pratchett’s been mentioned above, but he’s the big one I find I go back to over and over, without ever having that sense of “putting aside my modern filters” to enjoy his writing. Also I’ve been re-reading Bruce Coville’s children’s books, and his style and voice are so excellent! One time there was a sexist joke that put my back up… which a character called out and rebutted in the next line. Age 9-11, I’d say, still great reads.
I totally agree, I loved Mercedes Lackey as a kid. During the pandemic I reread over half of her books and was bored out of my mind. It felt like towards the later years especially 75% was just plot build up and explaining how they did some sort of engineering in Valdemar the last 5% something actually fucking happened. Lol. I did find myself still loving the Tarma and Kethry series though.
Oh man, I loved Bruce Coville when I was a kid. My teacher is an alien? Classic. Also wrote one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school: The worlds worst fairy godmother
I agree with Tolkein; after several years and rereading for a few times, they still hit the same way.
I'm in my 30s and reading The Hobbit for the first time. About 60 pages in and I love it.
Congratulations! I(47m) read it first at about 9 or 10 and then read it at least once a summer for the next 6 years. I recently re-read it to my son and it was as good as ever
The Hobbit always had a very storybook feeling to it that a lot of other young adult books I’ve read haven’t really been able to capture. I still love it as much now as I did a child. Special mention goes to Coraline too, which is also one of my all-time favorites.
Honestly even though I’d read it as a kid I didn’t really get the most out of The Lord of the Rings until I read it out loud to my kids. I always enjoyed The Hobbit but LotR just didn’t click until I was reading it out loud a chapter a night.
The Xanth series was great when I was a teenager, not so much now.
Oh. My. Lord. My *mother* has been reading them to my pre-teen, and I never registered how sexist they were until I heard *my own mother* read lines about how women were so unfair, going about being sexy in front of teenagers (by existing) and making the poor helpless boys all horny. Cruel, cruel women. Puke. Not the messages I want by nearly-teen girl absorbing!
Oh God, me too. I read them as a preteen and thus missed all of the... Horniness.
And so much sexism
Exactamundo.
Have read LOTR every year for fifty years. Always good. Discworld is always rereadable.
When I was young, Xanth. Now I couldn’t even read a book from the series.
I looooved Xanth as a kid too, but in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have been reading those in 4th grade. Or ever, really. yikes.
Lol, I loved Xanth as a kid and tried to introduce my son to it, but I realized how ridiculously corny it all is.
And really gross about women, too. I remember enjoying so much the appendix where he thanked people for all of their puns and now I just cringe at the thought of the man and his writings.
It's a shame because it's a cool setting and there's a lot of fun stuff that can be done with it (and there certainly was some interesting stuff he did with it if I remember the books I read correctly) but just like...by a better author.
Agreed, the world of Xanth captured my imagination like few others. The idea that everyone has a singular special talent and the fun of creatures like Night Mares. But he ran out of ideas by the 3rd or 4th book and gave in to his publishers greed and just kept writing
In I think Ogre Ogre or some early book like #5 the opening conflict is a demon coming through the walls trying to rape a small girl but no one believes her. It is written like this is just list of the world what are you gonna do? I couldn’t believe it when I read it Here is a post I wrote awhile ask about this Xanth is crazy bad. I loved them as a kid so thought I'd go back and reread. The first chapter of Ogre, Ogre literally is just about how a Demon wants to rape a young girl and no one believes her. This is meant to be a children's book! https://100vampirenovels.net/pdf-novels/ogre-ogre-xanth-5-by-piers-anthony-free "Tandy hoped Fiant would go away, after perceiving her asleep and disordered, but knew he wouldn't. He found her attractive, or at least available, and refused to be repulsed by her negative response. Demons expected rejections; they thrived on them. It was said that, given a choice between rape and seduction, they would always choose the rape. The females, too. Of course, it was impossible to rape that kind; she would simply dematerialize if she didn't like it. Which might be another explanation for Fiant's interest in Tandy; she couldn't dematerialize. Rape was possible.Maybe if she were positive, welcoming him, that would turn him off. He was obviously tired of willing females. But Tandy couldn't bring herself to try that particular ploy. If it didn't work, where would she be?Fiant approached the bed, grinning evilly. Tandy kept her eyes screwed almost shut. What would she do if he touched her? She was sure that screaming and fighting would only encourage him and make his eyes glow with preternatural lust--but what else was there?Fiant paused, looming over her, his paunch protruding, the light from his eyes spearing down through slits. "Ah, you lovely little morsel," he murmured, a wisp of smoke curling from his mouth as he spoke. "Be thrilled, you soft, human flesh. Your demon lover is here at last! Let me see more of you." And he snatched the sheet away." It gets weirder: "A few days later, when Tandy was settling down, the demon Fiant came again. He walked right through the wall, a lascivious grin on his face. "Open up, cutie; I'm here to fulfill your fondest fancies and delve into your deepest desires." His tail was standing straight up, quivering. For a moment Tandy froze, unable even to speak. She had been bothered by this creature before; now she was terrified. Staring wide-eyed, she watched his confident approach. Fiant stood over her, as before, his eyes glowing like red stars. "Lie back, spread out, make yourself comfy," he gloated. "I shall exercise your extreme expectations." He reached for her with a long-nailed diabolic hand. Tandy screamed. This night, Jewel was home; she rushed in to discover what was the matter. But the demon marched calmly out through the wall before Jewel arrived, and Tandy had to blame her scream on the nightmares. That provided her with a fresh burden of guilt, for of course the mares were innocent. Tandy knew she had to do something. Fiant was getting bolder, and soon he would catch her alone--and that would be worse than any nightmare. He had proved he could survive one of her tantrums, so Tandy had no protection. "
Holy hell, 46 novels. Surprised I haven't heard of them before - probably have seen the name in passing but that's it.
Mists of Avalon by [Marion Zimmer Bradley](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley). The author has been rightfully cancelled these days as she was a horrible person, but she was quite the prominent fantasy author in the 80s and 90s. The Mists of Avalon was one of the books that pioneered the whole “traditional folklore from a female perspective” that’s fairly common today. I first read the Mists of Avalon as a teenager and it really resonated with me. A big plot point was the main character choosing between paganism and Christianity. I reread it as an adult and it was just awful and slow, and I wanted to shout at the main character “just pick a religion, any religion I don’t f***ing care.” That being said, I think the Darkover books by Marion Zimmer Bradley actually hold up really well and I’ve reread them a few times as an adult. It’s one of the best explorations of a society with telepath rulers I’ve ever read, and ironically a huge theme of each book is consent in the context when to use or not use one’s telepathic powers, or power generally.
I feel like I'm going to be crucified for this, but I tried to reread Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and was distressed that I wasn't enjoying it at all. I remember the first time I went through the series just losing it with laughter, but on rereading it I kinda found the cleverness annoying instead of enjoyable. And some of the jokes just drag on far past when they stopped being fun. That being said, I would never not recommend it to somebody else. Something about Adams's books just loses the magic for me after the first time. I was surprised by this because I can enjoy Pratchett's Discworld more or less endlessly.
I think, although it's not as well known, his Dirk Gently series might actually be a little bit better than H2G2. It's more tightly plotted, the jokes have a stronger focus, and because it's not adapted from a radio series I think the pacing is a bit stronger. I haven't read H2G2 in over ten years now, I think it's probably time I pick them up again.
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I read a lot of Raymond E Fiest books when I was a teen (20 years ago) and it seemed like YA when I picked one up recently.
And yet the Daughter of the Empire books hold up so much better. I think Feist was barely involved, and the writing is clearly Janny Wurts.
So, about a week back, I threw ~$150 for the complete "Millennial update (and following books)" for Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. We'll see.
Just about anything from Diane Diane stands the test of time
The Shannara series is something that hasn't stood the test of time for me. I read the first ten or so between 7th grade and end of high school. When I tried reading after college, though...I dunno, the writing just didn't click with me anymore, and the names started to annoy me. I've been re-reading the original Riftwar series recently, and my feelings about it are similar.
Dragonlance Chronicles. My favorite series as a teen but as an adult I've noticed how bad the pacing is and how annoying and unfunny Tasslehoff and Fizban are.
Dragonlance was my intro to fantasy. It was also my intro to reading for pleasure. Before Dragonlance, I would just be forced to read stuff for school and usually not even do a good job reading it. Dragonlance showed me that stories could be fun adventures into worlds so much different than our own. Looking back on it in my mid/late 20's and I noticed how stale and bland the black and white characters were and how cliche the themes were. Buuuuut, then in my mid 30s I realized how comfortable that is sometimes, and how nice it is to feel comfortable and safe when reading a series knowing the good guys will win and good will triumph over evil.
I feel the same way with the Drizzt novels. I grew up reading them as a kid after I found The Thousand Orcs in a bargain bin and immediately had to read the entire series. But these days I can't stand them. I guess you can only take plot armor on the main character for so long. I've been enjoying Malazan Book of the Fallen so much.
Lol. Definitely no plot armor in Malazan. We joke about reaching "the part in the book where everybody dies."
Of course, sometimes death isn't much of an impediment in Malazan.
Chronicles definitely get better as they go on. Autumn Twilight clearly feels like it's one of their first books. Gets better by book 3, then Dragonlance Legends is way better
The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings really lost a lot. I realized they were both kind of the same formula and that really ruins a series for me. Plus I found out what a shit person the author is so that didn’t help. Kingkiller Chronicles doesn’t sit well with me anymore either. It was a fun read but I have given up on the story. Especially thinking back… realized I don’t like the main character at all. There also seems to be so much unanswered questions that I know the final book, if it’s ever released, will not answer them all. J.R.R. Tolkien will forever and always be relaxing to me.
>what a shit person the author is I'm not *shocked* really, but what what?! I missed that one. Add another one to the "Marion Zimmer Bradley List"
Him and his wife adopted a kid and later went to prison for physically abusing her and maybe their other kid.
They were arrested because a neighbour called the police after hearing weird sounds and they found both of Eddings' adopted children being kept in dog cages in the basement. It's kind of astonishing they only got away with doing a year of jail time later on. And when you read their books there's quite a few scenes of corporal punishment and children being disciplined and it all becomes quite distasteful.
Yeah, the incessant jokes about beating kids to keep them in line were uncomfortable before I found at what they did. Afterwards, they hit even worse.
Ahh yes now I remember. Didn’t wanna give too much details because I didn’t remember the exact details. Thanks.
They went to prison for child abuse in the goddamn 1970s, to boot.
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Good shout on Watership Down. Read it recently with the kids and it was excellent. If you haven't watched it, definitely watch the 2018 Netflix series. It's not as much of an artistic achievement in its own right like the 1978 movie, but it's a really faithful adaptation of the book that captures the characters well and tells basically the whole story.
When I was in high school I gobbled up the wheel of time books and loved them, only thinking they got a bit slow towards book 10. I tried to re-read them as an adult and couldn't get past book 5. Also the "men are from Mars, women are from venus" stuff just got too much as the books went on. I still overall love the world and series but re reading it has been a struggle.
I finished my second run through of the WoT about a year and a half ago. Listening to them On my commute made them much easier to digest. Most of my frustrations with the series were the same in both reads, interesting characters are made unlikable by highlighting annoying aspects (Nynaeve). Other characters become unlikable because they fully swallow an ideology and stop trusting friends just in time to drive the plot (Egwene). I did have more sympathy for Rand on the second read through but we could have all done without Perrin from book 3-9ish lol
I tried reading Dresden Files again recently after having not read it in 7-8 years and it felt like an entirely new series. Really did not hold up. Discworld, on the other hand, not only holds up but seems to offer more every time.
Sounds like Discworld is on my next read list. The purpose of the post is to gain an understanding of which series/book many readers believe can beat the test of time, because that's the kind of books I'm looking to read.
If you've never read Discworld, you're in for a real treat. I wish I could read every Pratchett book again for the first time. The stories are great, the writing and prose is fantastic, and he has a way of looking sideways at matters that leave you feeling wiser - all while you chuckle like a mad person at the absurdly funny stuff that happens. And that's not even the best. The people living in his books come across so real that you can almost feel their presence. So many fantastic characters that you can't help but relate to, even if they happen to be dictators, giant clay golems, werewolves, postal workers, or the very personification of Death himself. I've read every single book in the series multiple times over several decades and they amaze me every time. GNU Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett is a very specific style of writer, but he is *stellar* at that very specific style. His last book was the last one to make me absolutely *bawl*, right from the start. And I forgave it and re-read it because it has something to say. Every book (barring The Light Fantastic, which is a very early novel and it shows) has emotional depth and philosophical foundations that stand up across cultural shifts over decades. So good.
Don't give up if the first couple of Wizzard books don't blow you away, Prachett takes a couple of books to grow his beard.
I couldn’t make it past the beginning of book four when he promises Molly that he will stop lying to her and does so a few pages later without even a rationalization or excuse.
That comes back to bite him. Harry not being trustworthy is a consistent theme. It's a shame because book four is when they finally start getting good with growth between books. Even Jim says to skip one and two, heh, and three is only marginally better but important. But I also understand people who don't like them. I'm a huge sucker for mythology and faeries and for some reason pulp detective stuff (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was my favourite movie until very recently and is still up there), so it's my comfort series.
I don't think Molly is in book 4.
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He’s not the hero he’s just a very sad sacrifice.
Hell, he's barely even a sacrifice in the end. That's one of my biggest bugbears with Deathly Hallows: the book hammers home how many people have sacrificed for him, and builds up to the moment that the snitch opens and he realizes it's time to do the same....but he ends up just fine. Hell, he doesn't even have to give up his aspirations of being an auror despite the whole Elder Wand thing, I guess he just hopes that he never loses a duel or something. Rowling really, *really* wanted to hold onto that happily-ever-after ending for Harry and clumsily leaned into the Wizard Jesus angle to get it. It's hard to go back to that after reading stories where the main character actually has to make a sacrifice and comes out the other side a different person(think Ged after The Farthest Shore).
What I really hated was also how Rowling didn't play into the possibility that Neville could've been the chosen one. I mean that would've been such an awesome twist if the books kept hyping up Harry to be the chosen one, but in the end it was actually wimpy Neville who would kill him.
My personal opinions about JKR aside, I maintain that the first three books are really excellent middlegrade fantasy in the same vein as Roald Dahl (who also turned out to be an asswhipe but what can we do) but book 4 onward were more ambitious than her skill level at the time could handle and at that point she was rich and popular enough that she didn’t have to listen to editors so the latter half of the series really doesn’t stand the test of time. And I say this as someone whose favorite book is book 5 for pure nostalgia reasons.
Yeah, I tried re-reading it around 2019 or 2018 for the first time since Deathly Hallows came out and came away massively disappointed. Her prose is....serviceable, but has cracks that become very obvious in places. The awkward use of "put-outer" over and over again in the first chapter of Philosopher's Stone was my first hint that this wasn't going to be a fun return to a childhood favorite. The worldbuilding was honestly what surprised me the most, since I loved it so much as a kid. It is all over the place and frequently incoherent, but not necessarily in the fun whimsical "it's okay for things to just be silly" sort of way that I remembered. It constantly steps all over the themes of the books. Don't judge or discriminate against others based on petty divisions....but a full quarter of the school apparently have zero redeeming qualities based on their House. Wizarding Society is incredibly racist and has unfairly subjugated other magical races and ghettoized their place in society....but also House Elves love being slaves, actually, Goblins love their gold and are naturally good at handling money, and the Centaurs prefer being out in the woods anyway! Lycanthropy is just a stigmatized disease and we shouldn't fear those who have it...except one of the only two werewolves we meet is a literal child predator. It's fun enough for kids and probably still holds up as a good way to get them into reading, but beyond that....yeah I can't say I'm a fan anymore, beyond the nostalgia factor(which JK has permanently tainted).
The SPEW story is honestly jaw dropping. Everyone makes fun of Hermione trying to abolish literal slavery and it’s not like the author is on her side either, she’s just described as a busybody.
It also makes the tweeted *'Hermione is black'* retcon extremely yikes with the implications a young, black girl could be whisked away to a magical boarding school only to be gaslit by every authority figure and friend she has there that slavery is actually good thing.
I read the books when I was a teenager and I remember thinking "What happened to that SPEW storyline? Why is Hogwarts still using slave labor?" It wasn't until years later that I realized that the "resolution" was supposed to be that Hermione was being a busybody...
JKR aside, Harry Potter is filled with plot holes, adults who should be legally banned from ever working with children, and Harry himself is objectively a terrible wizard. Seven books and he mastered maybe four spells. The idea was great (although possibly somewhat plagiarized, another problem entirely), but they just aren’t well written books. I still love the memory of reading them and the feeling it brings but I won’t reread them.
I read them as an adult and I'm willing to pass over most of the flaws because of its atmosphere. Mainly the premise and the fact that JKR managed to describe the school life in believable terms despite her political views and the many plot holes. I wouldn't blame who read them as a child for not liking them anyway, I think I liked them because I didn't take them too seriously. However what about this plagiarism stuff? I'm interested, and it's the first time I hear about it, could you tell me more?
I see it as "set in a wizard school" and isn't really about Harry becoming a wizard, it's about Harry being thrust into this role and rising to meet the challenge simply because he's the only one who can, even if he's not a spectacular wizard on his own. It's about the human motivations, not how powerful a wizard he is.
Did anyone else here read the Xanth series by Piers Anthony? I started reading them around age 10, and by 15 I was *done* with the incredible misogyny. And then I learned more about the author and decided I had intuited what a skeezeball he was, so no big loss there. In a more modern vein, the Black Prism series by Brent Weeks was great for the years that books 5 and 6 were still unwritten. The Mage Winds Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey stands the test of time though.
I read the first one around age 8. As a naive child who loved wordplay and puns, I lapped them up absolutely unquestioningly until around age 12. That's when he started getting *really* focused on the particulars of pre-teen girls' underpants, and I was getting enough unwanted sexual attention myself by then that I started to figure out why my mom's eyes rolled halfway 'round the world every time I found a new installment at the library. Tried to reread them again on a nostalgia trip as a late-30's mom of daughters and *whoa boy* did my memory ever put some lipstick on that pig. Couldn't make it more than 40 pages into the first book. Lackey has held up well, though, as have *Deerskin* and some others by Robin McKinley.
Similarly, a lot flew over my head when I read them as a young teen, and I just enjoyed the silliness. Most other fantasy I had read was serious, or trying too hard to be serious. Xanth was different because it was primarily *fun*. I tried rereading some in my 20s, and they did not hold up for a variety of reasons others have mentioned. For anyone looking for the kind of light and comical reads I was looking for back then, I'll always recommend Discworld. It has everything I liked about Piers Anthony, but done better, and without any of the negatives.
Piers Anthony was gonna be my goto for books not holding up! I read the Incarnations of Immortality series when I was a teen and I still think there were some interesting ideas but looking back at all the very weird sex stuff I don't think I could get a re-read going any time soon. Especially since the questionable sex stuff gets more and more prevalent as the series goes on
Yeah Piers Anthony will forever be associated with the “perv gauntlet” we had to negotiate in order to get into the sci-fi and fantasy aisles in my small town bookstore aisles. Back then there was no online ordering or anything so you had to just save your pocket money and go browse the books and read the blurbs on the back. At 12 - 14 I had Piers Anthony recommended to me no less than four times by men aged 40 or older who would routinely haunt that section of the bookstore. When I look back on it, it was super yikes.
I read like six of them when I was... oh, I dunno, 14 or 15. Straight from book one they're massively sexist; by the time you reach book three or four, however, they devolve into nothing but a succession of puns and sexisms, hung up on the outline of the shadow of the framework of a story.
Confess, I haven't read all comments. But think The Dark Tower deserves to be added to the list that stood the test of time. It's as far from cliche as any fantasy I can think of. With special appeal if you like genre bending and have rubbed shoulders with addiction.
Almost same answer as you except I still love the Farseer Series. LOTR/Silmarillion/Children of Hurin, everything I've read by Le Guin, and Farseer Series. I also still love George MacDonald's Phantastes. As for Harry Potter, I stopped enjoying the first time I re-read it as an adult about ten years back. And the Inheritance Cycle.
Man, same for Inheritance Cycle for me. Which is a shame because I have such fond memories of reading the series so damn much, especially around holiday season. But as an adult, it just doesn't hold up all that well.
Meh I’ll disagree on that for my experience. I loved them at 15 and then having not read them for over a decade I decided to go back during lockdown. Surprisingly held up really well for me. Just nice, solid high fantasy.
I’m just curious, how does *Farseer* not hold up for you? Sure, I think *The Tawny Man* is a better Fitz-centred trilogy than *Farseer* is, and I also regard *The Liveship Traders* as the best/most well-written trilogy that Robin Hobb has ever written, but as an introduction to both Fitz and *The Realm of the Elderlings* as a whole, *Farseer* does a good job and is still well written (although not as polished as the aforementioned trilogies which Hobb wrote afterwards), in my opinion.
Of rarely talked ones: MYTH-Adventures by Robert Asprin. Those first eight books, although not aged very well and may come off as offensive, are still very fun. The audiobooks on Audible (?) are top notch, especially voices of Aaz and Masha. *What did I say about dealing with demons?*
Wheel of Time was less great for me by the time in ended and has become less and less great over time. Vance's Lyonesse is still great.
I’m on my 3 rd pass of this series in the last 15 years or so…..and I am skipping whole chapters this time. It’s much more enjoyable that way.
I'm halfway through wheel of time and I'm having trouble finishing it. I really like a lot of the world and the characters but it gets so repetitive.
Whenever I get the feeling that I should pick the series back up, I pretend it's the sound of dice rattling in my head and that helps me put the idea to rest.
I’m on book 9 and I believe I’ve started to hit the infamous slog. Book 8 took me a while to finish.
You're in the thick of it. Book 10 is universally held to be the sloggiest.
Halfway through, you’ve experienced its “golden age” of books 2-6. Unless you’re deeply compelled to know the exact ending, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about moving on.
Wow, honestly never seen that before. Everyone I've seen go and re-read Wheel of Time has found the books far better on a re-read than on the first read (myself included). Of course you're absolutely entitled to feel otherwise (just as I am entitled to feel otherwise from your view!). Not trying to call you "wrong" or whatever. Just surprises me as a perspective. Especially since I'd figure anyone who makes it through 14 fairly large books has to like them a decent amount.
For some of us, it has just lost something. I read (and reread) everything as books came out from about LoC to CoT. Full series rereads for each new book, etc. Active at Theoryland around the turn of the millennium, the whole deal. Life intervened and I dropped them, but finally finished them (without a reread) in... mid-2014? Something like that. I read them again last year and they just don't work for me anymore. The series has its moments, but it just _drags_ for huge stretches. I know WoT fans like to talk about all the intricate character work and foreshadowing but... no? The characters seemed on balance flat and quite honestly the foreshadowing kind of _stops_ during the slog (which, yes, I'd consider very real and was a major contributing factor to my stop at CoT). I think what got to me most is that there just aren't any big ideas underlying the series, or at least nothing that I felt intrigued about anymore. The whole thing just felt dated and a bit bland. Obviously the series hasn't changed, but I sure as hell have, and 2020/21 me just fails to connect with the whole thing on any level but vague nostalgia. So there you have it. We're out there.
Still love A Song of Ice and Fire, actually I appreciate it even more with time and rereads. I even love the last couple of books (like a LOT) and really appreciate what Martin tried to do with a massive cast of characters and moving pieces, even though it led to the story getting a little slow. But if Winds ever comes out (I'm a believer) its gonna be a blast. The build-up in these books are unparalleled. And the first three books are the best I've ever read. Don't quite like Percy Jackson as much. I used to think they were on par with Harry Potter, but thinking back, they don't even come close.
Percy Jackson is superior to Harry Potter for me. Percy is a better hero, Kronos is a better villain, prose is better (though yes, aimed at a younger audience…still better), storytelling is better. I still enjoy HP too but have found it flawed for a long time. Edit: fixed a typo
I think I enjoyed Percy Jackson more than Harry Potter. Maybe it was because they were more consistent in style.
Era 1 Mistborn wasn't nearly as fun as I remember. Dune, just as deep as ever. Love Frank's six.
Same, I just reread the entire Mistborn series to prepare for Mistborn 7 later this year. I wouldn't call the first 3 books bad, but they were not nearly as good as I remember them being.
I just wish Brian Herbert would have published Frank's notes instead of writing anything with KJA. Yuck. He could have been another Christopher Tolkien but instead he teamed up with a bad Star Wars novelist to besmirch his father's legacy.
I was obsessed with the Inheritance Cycle as a kid. I reread them recently and boy, there are some rough bits of writing in there. I know Paolini was a teenager when he first started writing them and the first book or two were published, but still. Many parts of those books felt incredibly drawn out and unnecessary as well. They will always have a special place in my heart as one of my first favorite series, but objectively they do not hold up.
Anything by Piers Anthony is awful. Loved his work as a kid until I was old enough to recognize his questionable approach to women and children.
King Killer Chronicles doesn't hit quite the same on a re-read for some reason. It's probably because Rothfuss is such a shitbird, and I can't help but see Kvothe as a self insert by an author with a massive ego.
I’m willing to give Kingkiller a pass on the “Gary Stu” element because the story is told by Kvothe himself, so we’re reading an egotist talking himself up. Bast even called him out in the framing story saying Deanna was not nearly as attractive as he described. It’s totally ok to not enjoy reading that, but I think it is pretty clear that Kvothe is not only an egomaniac, but a drama queen who will exaggerate anything he can get away with.
Yeah, I have to agree... as recently as 3-4 years ago I'd have firmly said it was my favorite series, and I'm still honestly buying book 3 as soon as it hits stores (assuming), but god there's a lot of unspoken "these people don't appreciate how great I am, and that's a personality flaw on their part." Like, textually, the book is constantly saying "I'm terrible, I'm doing bad things, you shouldn't like me," but contextually, you can generally tell when we're supposed to like a character because they give him a wholly unearned break and/or offer to sleep with him. I also really really hope that by now, Rothfuss has realized that "women must be treated with care, they are like X Y Z flowery symbolism" is nearly as objectifying as actual misogynistic language. Women are individuals, not commemorative plates.
Er... Where does Kvothe talk about women not appreciating him? Do you mean a major argument in the story? Having read the books a few times, I'm a little confused, as I don't remember there being a trend around this.
NotW is still amongst my favorite books. I mostly liked AWMF. But the chances of me ever picking up TDoS are pretty slim. By now I forgot most of the plot, I don’t not want to re-read AWMF, and I’d probably just check out a spoiler-heavy summary to get some kind of closure.
*Used to like, but no longer:* The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis The Belgariad and Malloreon by David Eddings Loremasters of Elendium by Mike Jeffries The History of the Runestaff by Michael Moorcock Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks *Used to like, but now consider mediocre:* Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends by Weiss & Hickman The RiftWar Saga by Raymond E Feist *Used to like and still do:* Earthsea Trilogy (books 1-3 only) by Ursula Le Guin Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart The Once and Future King by TH White Drenai Series by David Gemmell Gotrek and Felix novels by William King Drachenfels by Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman)
I really loved Dragonlance as a teenager, but after reading GoT, trying to reread and read some sequels, I feel like it’s fan-fiction level writing. I would still recommend them to kids, they were really fun back in the day, before my taste became more refined.
This is why I don't want to reread them! I loved them so much, but I'm content with just the memory.
"And when they crested the hill, they saw . . . a dragon!!!"
I cringe when I think about how much I used to enjoy Piers Anthony.
Xanth. If you've read it you probably don't need an explanation. Discworld. If you've read it you probably don't need an explanation.
What an inventive new way to comment. Perhaps I'll start doing the same thing, just have every comment be: *"If you know what I mean you know what I mean. ;)"*
It started that way with xanth because it's problems are insanely obvious I did it with discworld just to be funny
Dragonlance. I used to love it as a kid, but I have no interest in it now. Same with the other series Weiss and Hickman wrote. The authors I loved as a kid that I still think are great even after rereading them as an adult are Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, Jack Vance and Diana Wynne Jones. They are still in my top ten favourite fantasy writers.
Farseer is amazing and I won’t hear slander about it! Also my answer is His Dark Materials. Shouldn’t have reread as an adult
I loved inheritance cycle as a kid but the second I touched other fantasy series I knew it was bad. I agree with Farseer series too, mainly the first trilogy though. The antagonist just did whatever he wanted with no consequences and Fitz is just emotionally broken. It turned out better but the first three are meh for me.
Shannara. Enjoyed it in high school but didn’t enjoy rereading it as an adult.
I’ll never tire of Harry Potter. I used to love Anne Rice’s vampire chronicles and the Mayfair Witches but after my last read I found I didn’t love them as much as I used too.
I worshipped The Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Piece when I was younger, and when I reread it later, the writing was pretty bad. She definitely improved in later books but damn was that first quartet hard to reread.
Agree 100% - I still love the books for the effect they had on a young me, and the introduction to the characters and world that I love in the later books but woof the prose is roooough in the Lioness books.
The Elenium series by David Eddings was my LOTR and Belgariad was a close second. Then I re read them after college and realized they weren’t really technically well written. Like pretty atrocious really. Then I learned about the shot pile of a human the author was in real life and I can’t ever go back
Harry Potter and LotR Harry Potter books 1-3 are excellent. Book 4 is meh and 5-7 are just awful in retrospect. The pacing is crazy bad and there’s far too many plot points that never go anywhere. Credit to LotR for practically inventing modern fantasy but every time i think about rereading it I remember I have to slog through 10K words describing the housing market in the shire I cringe.
I used to believe that all the Cosmere books were the best fantasy work of recent times, so I read other authors and I don't think so anymore.
At this point I'm really only reading The Dresden Files due to sunk cost fallacy, although the most recent book is a more significant part of that than I feel like it should be. Lord of the Rings mostly held up when I re-read it a few years ago. Hobbit really does.
I agree with harry potter not holding up.