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I never finished Don Quixote. The book just plods along a bit too much.
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May 29, 2008 21:33
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Neo_Reloaded posted:If you were reading the abridged version, that might explain the disconnect. The abridged cuts something like 700 pages out of the original. The non-abridged even has a bit of a disconnect since the story broadens out and isn't focused solely on Dantes. In fact, the story kind of pretends that Dantes is not the Count for quite a while. It's a wonderful book, though. I actually found the second half better than the first once it gets going. Mokinokaro fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Sep 18, 2008 |
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Jul 30, 2008 00:51
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CSD42 posted:The Count of Monte Cristo is a great story but gently caress me if I am going to read that much of how miserable the dude was in prison before crafting an escape. I may come back to it for another go, I gave up on it something like Freshman year of High School. There's actually 2 versions of the novel: the full and the abridged. If the prison stuff does really bore you, try the abridged version which starts after the post-prison timeskip (and actually reads a bit more like a mystery novel that way.) You miss some of the setup but the story still works remarkably well. Sword of Shannara is definitely a LotR ripoff (no wonder Brooks helped write the movie scripts.) The series does get a bit better after the first book, but still is very cliche fantasy. However, try his Word and Void series (3 books beginning with Running with the Demon) as it's actually a very interesting take on "modern" fantasy. Brooks can be a decent writer when he avoids falling into conventional fantasy traps.
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Aug 20, 2009 04:13
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-Risk posted:I've attempted three seperate books by Terry Pratchett. I even payed for them, yet i can't get through either. My mind just wanders away midway through his alleged wittiness. Which books, if I might ask? Some of them are really hard to get into (especially his early stuff.) Try and borrow Small Gods. If that one doesn't catch you, Pratchett just isn't for you.
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Nov 30, 2009 01:09
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/\ Neuromancer is definitely a slower book than stuff like Snow Crash. Keep at it if you can as the ending's great. Currently I'm struggling with Pratchett's Unseen Academicals which is odd since I usually breeze through his books. This one simply has failed to grab me. I think it might be a little too British when it comes to the football plot.
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Jan 2, 2010 16:41
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Plorkyeran posted:The later books aren't blatant copies of better known stories, so I guess they're more creative in that he did actually think up things on his own. Too bad that everything he thought up was terrible. Word & Void was pretty decent as far as pulp novels go, so the guy can write interesting stuff when he decides to.
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Jan 25, 2010 03:48
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The Machine posted:Always cracked me the gently caress up (and made me groan) when I read that the protagonist's name in Snow Crash is, well, Hiro Protagonist. It's not really about that, though, the virtual reality bits are only a part of an entertaining read.
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Jan 29, 2010 23:41
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Stultus Maximus posted:drat. After reading this and other posts, I'll put Unseen Academicals with Eric in "so poorly reviewed I won't even get it for completeness". UA really seemed like he had a lot of ideas he wanted to do before he couldn't do them. It's a mashup of a lot of interesting and funny stuff, but it's unfortunately not as structured or coherent as most of his work.
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Feb 3, 2010 04:02
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/\ I'm also in that situation (not even sure if I made it that far.) Diamond Age had similar issues but at least the opening chapters were intriguing enough that I continued.
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Jul 13, 2010 22:11
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masada00 posted:Are you talking about the first part of "The Book of the New Sun"? Severian of the Guild is an omnibus edition consisting of all 4 parts. I've been considering picking it up as I've never read the series.
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Aug 2, 2010 03:33
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Musta Kraken posted:I could not finish Terry Goodkind's series. It was just too painful to pick up any longer. I got like 8 books in. I tried. I really tried to find something about the series to enjoy, because I hate to stop on a book or series once started... but holy crap... it could not be more of a vehicle of the author's warped politics and world view, and the further you get, the less he tries to hide it. I can read the Shannara books and yet Goodkind is still awful.
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May 23, 2011 18:28
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z0331 posted:I'm running into this now. The style kind of irritates me and it really just feels like a long string of 'this happened then this happened then this happened' without any significance to any of it. I have absolutely no curiosity about anything that's going on or why it's happening. The thing is that when he wrote that Gibson was still learning to write for the most part. The Sprawl trilogy does get a bit better as it goes but his newer books are much better written. I echo the Game of Thrones folks. Martin's writing style is just very bland to me and the "darker and edgier" side just seems incredibly forced.
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Aug 20, 2011 20:38
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Davos posted:While I really enjoy cyberpunk and I absolutely loved Neuromancer, I could just not get through Count Zero for the life of me. Gibson really seemed to just leave behind everything that was interesting about the previous book and what was left was just dry and lifeless to me. Count Zero is the weakest of the Sprawl trilogy. I recommend skipping straight to Mona Lisa Overdrive as it definitely has more of a Neuromancer feel.
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Apr 26, 2012 01:00
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LordPants posted:* A Dance with Dragons. I just got bored, and tired by what I perceived as a lack of structure and discipline in the writing. I couldn't sense the direction in which it was heading and I felt that the Author was not sure himself. Also, reading books on the actual War of the Roses is far more interesting, and it is always interesting finding the stuff that influenced him in real life. Or the stuff that bears uncanny similarities. I dropped the series here as well. GRRM seems to have lost the plot and something about his writing keeps bugging me.
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Jul 24, 2012 22:13
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LordPants posted:After I read enough of the books, I started to hate them. This is me as well. The entire series seems to get worse and worse as later books flesh out parts that were best left to the imagination. I can't watch the show after reading the books either. It's a faithful adaptation (except for extra violence and nudity) but I can't get into it because the source material is so dire. In my opinion of course.
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Aug 6, 2012 23:13
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funkybottoms posted:Is that where you stopped? It took a while for the book to really get its claws in me, but once it did, I found it very rewarding, if often a bit of a mindfuck. If you make it through, though, a lot of that stuff actually makes sense. Yeah, if you can stick with it, it does actually get a lot better. A big part of it you need to realize is that the protagonist (minor spoiler) is a very unreliable narrator. Any embellishment is completely intentional.
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Aug 27, 2013 21:12
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Don Tacorleone posted:The Game of Thrones, the first book :/ Me too. GRRM's writing just doesn't work for me. The show is a good adaptation though.
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Oct 30, 2013 17:05
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Buller posted:Don Quixote, what an awful repetitive mess. Yeah the original is a very long slog. There's also some dire translations that take a lot of the whimsy out of the text which makes it worse to read.
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Dec 10, 2013 02:54
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