Name a poor/mediocre author/writer too many people have read

[Robb]

Robert James Waller. :evilgrin:

[Magrittes Pipe]

1. William Rivers Pitt.

I keed, I keed! :P

[sus]

2. Danielle Steel

[LDS Jock]

46. in her defense

where would Lifetime get their original movies if it weren't for Danielle Steel novels? Where would Jaclyn Smith's career be without them?

[sus]

47. in her defense??? GET THEE TO A NUNNERY!

:)

[2bfree]

81. I hate Danielle Steel..............

What a bunch on shlock! Ugh! :puke:

[mstrsplinter326]

3. Clancy

Because he doesn't write his own novels now, it's just a franchise name. That's a load of crap to me...

[R3dD0g]

20. His novels could be churned out by

a Pentium IV in a day.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. James Redfield

what crap

[Cats Against Frist]

5. Billy Collins

with Charles Bukowski a close second.

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. Clive Barker

Ann Rice

[Sandpiper]

7. John Grisham

*YAWN*

[Burma Jones]

8. Saint Paul n/t

[Az]

9. Stephen King

I mean good grief. He must keep a bag full of cliche characters to cast his books. Mix and match a few and then churn out another formula. Blech.

On Edit: Doh! Forgot to put on my abestos underware.

[BigMcLargehuge]

10. I am not a huge fan of the man

but his work ethic is incredible. Also, his book "on writing" is fantastic.

[Sandpiper]

13. Stephen King himself has said

That he's the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries.

I don't think he's ever taken himself too seriously.

[HEyHEY]

56. BINGO!

Exactly, the guy's written three books like a hundred times

[Fenris]

11. LeHaye and Jenkins

Dan Brown

[Gasolinedream]

21. THey are horrible!!!!

I read "Left Behind" only and it was one of the worst books I have ever read. It was poorly written with shallow characters and I never had any interest to ever read another book by them again.

[eyesroll]

12. Stephen King.

I own way too many Stephen King books. I was a Stephen King wannabe in high school.

Proof:
youthfulrhetoric.blogspot.com

(I'm the lone prose contributor so far.)

[ChompySnack]

14. Number 1 on the list is Hemmingway!

I have no idea why people think he is a good writer. People who don't read much throw his name around as their favorite author like that proves they are literate. It just proves that they don't know any really good writers.

[jdsmith]

30. So name a good writer

One who wrote something as good as _In Our Time_ or _The Sun Also Rises_, I mean.

[jobycom]

41. I think maybe you should

learn why people think he is a good writer, rather than insulting those of us who do. Those who awarded him the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize can hardly be accused of being poorly read.

I hate Faulkner and Joyce, but I wouldn't put them on this list.

[jmags]

45. Thank you. You said what needed to be said.

[underpants]

54. Thank you -boring, unimagineative, like he was writing with crayons

I read the Old Man and the Sea and The Sun also Rises BORING!!!!!!!!!!

[DS1]

71. The old man and the sea made me want to tear my eyeballs out

knowing my luck, I'd be forced to listen to the "Books on Tape" version, as orated by Ben Stein, in my hospital bed

:nuke:

[underpants]

79. I know I was reading page after page of nothing

HOOK THE DAMNED FISH ALL READY!

Me thinks Hemingway had a bar tab to pay off.

[jobycom]

80. Sigh

WRONG!!!

[LSdemocrat]

15. Rush Limbaugh

[cheezus]

18. Ann Coulter, Hannity, etc, etc

that's what I was thinking

[geniph]

63. No, no, one of the criteria was that people have READ their stuff!

No one actually READS Insannity and Coaltar's crap, any more than they actually read O'Reichley's trash. They BUY them, sure, but READ them? I think not. :puke:

[NoodleBoy]

16. Tom Clancy

he looks like Jabba the Hutt, too.

[R3dD0g]

22. I second that a second time.

[Skittles]

37. sometimes people ask me if I named my cat after Tom Clancy

HELL NO. "Clancy" is a dog character in a James Herriot novel. :D

[LynzM]

17. Dan Brown

*gripe* *gripe* (But I've read some of it, too...)

[demnan]

19. Patricia Cornwall

very sloppy writer - no mystery there.

[devilgrrl]

25. Sloppy... well put.

BTW, Ms. Cornwall hasn't solved the Jack the Ripper case - she's a hack plain and simple.

[comsymp]

73. Funny y'all should mention her-

Am currently re-reading her Scarpetta series (been in the mood for mental junk food lately) and have noticed a lot of flaws that I must've sped thru when I first read 'em. It was surprising.

Factual, grammatical, structural and formulaic errors abound. Very disappointing.

[geniph]

64. Her supposedly "humorous" books are awful

I read a couple of the ones like Isle of Dogs, and they're dreadful. I don't see the appeal. A couple of her more conventional mysteries aren't bad, but certainly not deathless literature. OK for an airplane read, I suppose.

[Tweed]

23. Tom Clancy n/t

[tigerbeat]

24. J.K. Rowling

i know i'm the only person on the planet that thinks this. i accept my mutant-status and am waiting for the government to step in and take me out of the gene pool.

i just think everything in those damn books has been done before and better by other people.

[MsUnderstood]

26. VC Andrews

C'mon people, lets find the authors who really suck. Just cause someone is popular doesn't mean he/she is horrible.

[LDS Jock]

44. I second V.C. Andrews

I'm embarrassed to admit I have read far too many of her books. Every one, every different set up was the same. I hate my parents, my mother and/or grandmother is evil, and I lust for my brother. Just how many times can you read the same crap? For me, probably seven of her books. My excuse, I was young and poor and the books were readily available from a friend. Please don't tell anyone I've read her novels.

[Connie_Corleone]

27. Stephen King

and John Grisham

[hrhdeb]

28. J.K. Rowling

I will probably get slammed for this, but I don't think that she is a great writer. I think the stories are wonderfully entertaining, but as a series, the books are rather formulaic. It's the magical version of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew series.

Deb

http://www.votewhileyoustillcan.com

[asthmaticeog]

29. Anne Rice

Die, die, die, die, die...

[Bridget Burke]

31. I liked some of her earlier stuff....

Interview with the Vampire, of course. And The Feast of All Saints, a non-occult tale of life among the New Orleans Creoles. I've heard she doesn't let her work be edited. If true, that would explain the soggy messes she keeps churning out.

Sorry, Anne, you need an editor!

[tandot]

32. Ann Coulter n/t

[Screaming Lord Byron]

33. 'Lord' Jeffrey Archer.

[Fenris]

39. Who?

Him?



http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2002/02/04/archer-daddy.html

[Screaming Lord Byron]

40. Who else?

[bif]

55. His book of short stories isn't bad

"Quiver full of Arrows" but I''ve heard the rest of his books are tripe.

[LynneSin]

34. Sean Hannity: You have to be a dingbat to read his stuff

:eyes:

[Blue-Jay]

35. Dean Koontz

Trite and formulaic writing at its finest.

[chicaloca]

38. I second that!

Do any of his characters actually have believable personalities? :puke:

[geniph]

65. Koontz' stuff is the equivalent of cotton candy

It's not particularly good for you, it has no redeeming value and it doesn't stick with you. But it probably won't kill you, unless you're diabetic, in which case the syrupy morals he tacks on might send you into a coma.

[ZenLefty]

36. Robert Jordan

60 pages was all I could stomach. :puke:

[CrownPrinceBandar]

49. I'm reading "The Eye of the World" right now.....

it isn't too bad, but he is definitely LONG-WINDED. Get to the frickin' point already!!!

[JackDragna]

50. Be glad you cut it off there.

I remember when Jordan was publicly stating the "Wheel of Time" series was only going to go about five books max. He ended up just going and going, making his books paper-thin in terms of content because he knew he had a cash cow on his hands. He also uses every cliche in the book for fantasy..peasant boy becomes hero, know-it-all, super-competent and morally flawless feminine protagonists, people with apostrophe names (why, oh God, is everyone in a fantasy world named T'Ch'Pok or some such?). Utter bilge, his books are.

[jobycom]

42. Terry Goodkind

Bad writer. Once a good storyteller, but not for his last few books.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

48. Hot Damn! I second that.

I'm not the only one who thinks that. Any discussion threads I've tried to fire up on Goodkind's total suckage as a writer of late have sunk like a stone.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who's been...disppointed in him lately. Actually, I kinda loathe his neo-conservative libertarian Ayn Rand-plagarizing crap now.

[jobycom]

52. Check out Amazon's reader reviews of Naked Empire

He's sinking like a pillar of stone.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

58. Don't you mean he's sinking like a "Pillar of Creation"?

Sorry. Bad joke.

I've noticed that about his reviews. The first four books average 4 to 4.5 stars. The last four books average around 2.5 stars or less.
Naked Empire made me want to puke.

Someone once asked him how he got his stories. He told them that the two main characters started "telling" him their story, and he just wrote it down. Being a writer, I can understand what he means. Years later, someone asked him the exact same question, but this time, his answer was something like "I have a certain political discourse that I feel needs to be told, and I simply wrap the story around it."

Naked Empire was a junior high allegory for the Iraqi War. Even came complete with war protesters, who Richard slaughtered because they "stood in his way". (I actually threw the book into a corner of the room when I read that part.)

Have I told you how much I hate his books? Moreso because I paid for them myself, and supported his bloated ego. I heard Goodkind was re-reading his books to "regain his focus" for NE. Seems like he hated what he wrote before.

Good news is there's only three books left in the series. Can't end soon enough, but I won't be buying them.

[jobycom]

60. You can tell

when he stopped caring about his characters and started his political treatise. Those books completely contradict what he said before, and they have no internal story integrity.

He's trying to be L Ron Hubbard, I guess.

I know what you mean about the war protest scene. His comment about moral clarity was what broke the whole story for me, after that, I could no longer get pulled into the story again, it was like reading something from the outside.

Sad. His characters were once endearing. You can tell he let the scenes write themselves because they flowed in a constant narrative, even with his pretentious, bombastic style. His last few books have no flow. I won't read the rest. And I used to pre-order his stuff.

It isn't just the politics. I've enjoyed stories when I've disagreed with the politics of the book. He's just not telling a story anymore.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

61. "Moral clarity"

That's the phrase that made me madder than hell.
I remember actually speaking to the book "who the fuck is his ass to tell me I have no moral clarity"

What's really sad is Goodkind snared one of the BIGGEST advance contracts (for a fantasy writer) for his last four books. Somewhere over $10 Million. That kind of money is practically unheard of in Sci Fi/Fantasy literature.

I did a little research on Mr. Goodkind checking on his interviews, and he considered the NYT's best seller list to be the worst kind of censorship (He preferrs the USA Today or the Wall Street Journal) and all colleges to be the most repressive societal instuitions in America (I'm paraphrsasing here.)

I agree, there is no story anymore.

As for your comment that you won't read the rest, I also have to agree.
Someone told me once "But...but...it's caled the Chainfire Trilogy!! How cool is that?"
WTF is a "Chainfire"?

[southpaw]

43. Jackie Collins

But that goes without saying, right?

[CrownPrinceBandar]

51. Steven R. Donaldson...................

I HATE Thomas Covenant! I wish leprosy would catch up with the whiny little bastard!!!

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

68. While I actually like Donaldson...

I HATED (hate hate hate hate) his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Mordant's Need was much better. (Happy ending, too)

"whiny little bastard"
I like that.
:thumbsup:

[bif]

53. Robert Ludlum

If you've read one Ludlum book, you've read them all.

[AngryAmish]

57. Don Delillo

God does he suck. Let me tell you something - a clever turn of a phrase does not mean you can have a boring story. When one tells a story the author has an obligation to make the work interesting. The man is unreadable, yet you have all these half-wits claiming he is this wonderful man of letters.

[Robb]

62. Well, I'm among the half-wits

;)

Although I've only read Libra and White Noise, both of which I thought had great stories as well as the clever turn of phrase bit. I can see though, if the story isn't interesting, how it could get old quickly.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

59. Harold Robbins?

...if you're looking for great prose and deep insight into the human condition. But if you're just reading for entertainment, then the sometimes raunchy pulp of Robbins can be great stuff.

[geniph]

66. Ayn Rand, L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith

I can't abide the people who make religions out of bad books!

[comsymp]

75. DEFINITELY Ayn Rand!!!

Was actually scrolling to make sure she had been mentioned- surprised I had to get this far down the list.

Her writing "style" is worse than her theory. It's like Mein Kampf, ghostwritten by Judith Krantz.

(Never felt inclined to read Hubbard or Smith, so no comment- although some of their followers...)

[Gildor Inglorion]

67. Barbara Cartland, Saul Bellow, Ira Levin, John D. McDonald,

John O'Hara, Frank Yerby, etc.

[VOX]

69. John Irving.

Turgid and sort of base. His wordsmithing is extremely pedestrian.

[sleipnir]

70. Rilke...

Not even getting into it today...

[patcox2]

72. The cliche-meister general and tireless dead-horse flogger,

The master of melodrama, the pseudo-Byronic rabble rouser, oh, I can't say his name, it would just get you all mad. Nice guy, means well, just so hackneyed, cliche' ridden and overly dramatic. For stylistic sins, I just can't do it.

Here is a hint: "with every fiber of my being."

I will second, third, and fourth the Ayn Rand nomination.

Hemingway is in contention.

The so-called poetry of Jim Morrison and John Lennon is miserable. When it comes to poetry, as well as philosophy and spirituality, I find the experts generally peddle better quality wares than rock star dilletantes.

[tom_paine]

74. L. Ron Hubbard

His books LITERALLY read as if they were written by a Third Grader.

Battlefield Earth, while the plot idea wasn't half bad, was written so poorly that I threw the book down in disgust after 400 pages (yes, I know, how did I last even that long?)

[SmileyBoy]

76. Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz, Stephen King (to an extent).

King wrote probably the greatest horror novel of the 20th Century, "The Stand". But a lot of his other books seem to have recycled plot lines/characters, etc.

[SmileyBoy]

77. Oop, forgot Tim LaHaye.

Even though he's a whacko fundie, I probably would have respected him as an author if his Left Behind series was well-written and had good plot lines and characters. But it's not.

[SmileyBoy]

78. William Pierce, aka Andrew McDonald, who wrote "The Turner Diaries"

:puke:

[Zomby Woof]

82. Stephen King

Dean Koontz, Mary Higgins Clark... I could go on and on... but why bother? They suck!