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 Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:37 am
Allright. For reasons that escape me, some of you guys harbor vast hatreds for popular books like Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Harry Potter, Eragon, etc. And for the love ofthe gods, I can't figure out what's up with trhat, so...were gonna try something for the sake of better understanding each other.
So I want you all to tell me: What's your favorite mainstream book/series, and what's your least favorite, and why?
Allright now.
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Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 12:11 pm
Okay, I know I have a favorite.... I just can't remember it.... I know it's there....... I know it... I'm thinking. ....I don't think I have a favorite. gonk And someone hates Lord of the Rings? WHY???? I understand Harry Potter. The first three books rocked. Next few... Not so much. They had lost their charm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWCYDaZHl6QEragon was the same old story, just with more detail and more emo. Eragon is like Kira from Gundam Seed. Twilight was a story I loved, but still, it's so overrated. And the fact that she could fall in love so easily is the part I find unbelievable. I mean, she would be scared. No, seriously. Eventually she would be. No one is that in love to forget their fear for something unnatural. that's like falling in love with a chupacabras.
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Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:27 am
I'm sure SOMEONE hates Lord of the rings. that was just an example.
I, for one, adore Harry Potter, though I wish she hadn't slaughtered the seventh one quite so badly. I mean, come on. COLIN? LUPIN AND TONKS? HEDWIG?!?!?! Gah! crying
Eragon pisses me off because he didn't even try that hard and it's still famous. Damn him and his famous fifteenyearold writer self. Damn him to hell.
Twilight was amazing, the only complaint I have is for the sappy lame ending. I think Bella not being scared was kind of the point. It's been proven in BReaking Dawn that she's really....REALLY weird. She is one of the weirdest characters I have ever read about. I accept that as the reason why she doesn't act very normal...cause she's not :/ Plus, love is irrational. *shrug*
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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 11:30 am
What impresses me about popular book serieses is that the author finds a way to relate to the common people--that there's some damn thing in those paltry words that the average human being can understand. Call it what you like. Stephanie Meyer did that, JK Rowling did that. You don't have to like it, but they did something amazing. My favorite books of all time are: Of Mice and Men, White Oleander, Wuthering Heights, Walk Two Moons, One Thousand Splendid Suns, and Anouillh's Eurydice. My least favorites... I hate romance novels. As for the seventh Harry Potter, it should have ended with an ancient Harry as a Dumbledore figure, Ron and Hermione should have died. But that's just my opinion. Eragon needed some serious editing. I blame his publisher. Bella ... I won't say anything.
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 11:31 am
And as for the Lord of the Ringses, I hated them... because I couldn't stop thinking about them for days. They were wonderful. Epic literature. Epic.
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:59 pm
I have to say this, Twilight has gone done the drain. The first three books are good, and she would have done some wonderful things with thte last. But Breaking Dawn makes me want to cry. crying That was one heck of a disappointing ending.
Harry Potter....well, everything is fine until about the fifth book, then it went down hill too.
All time favorite: Pride and Prejudice. I normally despise romance, but I can't stop reading that book! I don't know why. Each year I read it at least once. So it's about five times now.... mrgreen
Current favorite: The Messenger. New style. New way of writing. And a lovely way to pull everything together at the end.
LOTR = EPIC. Everything was epic. The books, the movies, the music, EVERYTHING. heart
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 5:43 pm
Lord of the Rings INVENTED epic. They spawned all these mythical/adventure/fantasy books just like Twilight spawned allt he crappy vampire books.
I love books too much to play favorites. I just get in moods and wnat to read a certain thing. favorite for chilling out is the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, it helps me find my chi. When I want something homey and familiar, I go for To Kill a Mockingbird--which might possibly have to be my favorite. When I want humor, I go for Wish List by Eoin Colfer. When I'm feeling scared of emotion in general, Pinocchio's sister--a book about the horror stories of emotions. Lovely book, that one is. When I feel like HP, I read HP. Same with Twilight. Any series really. Right now it's Artemis Fowl ><
I have ltos and lots of books and no room or time for them all *tear* There are four new ones I still haven't read! *horror*
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Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:27 pm
Pride and Prejudice is very good. Have you read any more of Austen's works?
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:23 pm
YES! Tao of Pooh deserve a special trophy for being deep and understandable by kids at the same time.
(changed) Current favorite: The Violin by Anne Rice. This book. Is. Damn. Amazing. Not about vampires but in her style. And it resonates with me since I play the violin. *worship*
I've read all of Austen's books and consider Persuasion to be her finest, but Pride and Prejudice to be the rawest most powerful form. Sanditon has potential too but *sigh* she never finished it.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:29 pm
I do not harbor vast hatred for all popular books! The Lord of the Rings is everything I ever want to be as a writer. Harry Potter I spent seven years of my life obsessing about. I love like 90% of all the classics I've ever read.
But. Eragon. It. It burns. This is because I love Lord of the Rings so much, and because I see so much of it mangled in Eragon. Not necessarily stolen, but aspired to and mangled nevertheless.
And Twilight I just dislike because in my view it's pretty much a mediocre romance novel with toppings, and that doesn't appeal to me, myself.
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:38 pm
Is...is there a romance novel that's NOT mediocre? I mean sure, she did kind of skim over the sex scenes...lame. LAME. SO LAME. But she did actually take a really creative spin on vampires, and the characters were so REAL. o.o
Adn Eragon burns all the more because I've been trying to get published since age 13, and he had publisher parents, and his book sucks. GRR.
And yet here he is...and here am I. emo
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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:03 pm
I don't know. But I've read romances within novels that are NOT mediocre, and therefore I think it can be done; which means the mediocrity of Twilight is not excusable merely because it's centered around romance.
I dunno. I guess my other objection was she erased most of what made vampires interesting (in my opinion) by cutting away so many of their flaws. Different, yes, but not... better, necessarily.
And I didn't like her characters. xd Which goes some ways towards explaining why you liked it and I did not. Sometimes it's just a matter of taste.
I sympathize, although I haven't actually gone through any of that (I'm the same age you were when you started, so I suppose I should see about that soon, haha). I know a lot of fellow young writers who resent Paolini because of that. And not without reason, as you've said. The book sucks!
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 3:20 pm
crying Chris Paolini makes us young writers look bad...meanie. and it had potential too--but experts on star wars and LOTR tell me he pretty much jacked their stories, and I believe them. That, and his book needed a rewrite. Natural talent he MIGHT have had, but he didn't use it well. Asssssssssssshole.
And maybe it is just a matter of taste. Thoguh, I don't think she cut away many NECESSARY flaws. They still craved human blood and it took them ages to learn to resist it. And Edward acted like a psycho to Bella at first... What other flaws were there? Like, garlic and s**t? I think she did a very good job taking out stupid cliches like silver bullets and replacing it with cool stuff that made it seem believable. Of course, in like fifty years the future people will think that her stuff was stupid and cliche too...oh well.
On that subject sort of, did you know that (so my bf found out) dracula was actually inspired by a book called Carmella (or something close, I'm pretty sure that's it) about lesbian vampires? 3nodding
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Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 3:30 pm
But see, now that they can control it, that's... it. I guess it's mainly that they're all either noble or evil, and that's it. I'd have been better pleased if she'd injected some more actual humor into it. Not the characters, but the concepts. I dunno. I think probably I've been spoiled by Terry Pratchett.
And I always liked the parts wherein vampires turn to dust under the sun, or werewolves can only be killed by silver and flame. Garlic is silly but holy symbols and light and argent are not. I like the vampires who are parasites, stagnant, neither living nor dead, trapped in their halflife: because to me that's the root of vampirism, and you might as well just call them something else if you're going to change that. But as I said: that's just me.
And Chris Paolini may or may not have natural talent, but he sure as hell didn't demonstrate much of it in the books.
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Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:29 pm
If you read the foreword of Dracula, it says Carmilla actually came out later. As for vampirism, it was always a symbol of dark sexuality. Stephanie Meyer took a lot of that away by making the characters "believeable." She turned Edward into a teenage heartthrob, made vampires common-seeming, almost ordinary. I applaud her ability to interpret what the teeming masses of teenager-dom were looking for, but I don't like what she did with the concept of vampirism. It's got so much more potential.
Sandition did look to be wonderful. gonk I liked Emma.
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