Thread: Over-Rated Authors

I'm not talking about in the world in general; I'm talking about the writing community. Books a ton of people love (including writers) that suck.

I've always thought Raymond E. Feist and David Eddings were two such examples, as well as Suzanne Collins's entire Hunger Games trilogy.

Raymond E. Feist is boring, overly descriptive, dry, unoriginal, and utterly unexciting. There is absolutely nothing likable about anything I've read by him.

David Eddings is good for a read, to me, if I'm bored to hell and have nothing else. I might just not get his sense of humor (a friend of mine assures me that it's one of the more important parts to his stories), but he also tends to re-use characters in different series under different names.

I've only read the first book in The Hunger Games, but oh my God Suzanne Collins needs to stop writing forever - at least if she keeps on with anti-communist symbolism in a children's book. Then there's the problem of how retardedly, unrealistically melodramatic the book is, how the characters are nothing but one sided (The main character loves everyone, except the people who she's trying to kill, and has no personality past trying to protect her, her sister, and her friends, and surviving - oh, and being awesome at everything.

My ranting aside, which authors do those of WF think are over-rated?

James

I think that while he is a spectacularly gifted writer, David Eggars is a bit overrated. But the most overrated, to me, is John Updike. He just comes across as someone who is in love with his writing.

Alexander McCall Smith, formulaic, repetitive and padded out.

Pardon my ignorance but I've never heard of any of those people except John Updike. He's okay, but not great.

What have I missed with that other group? Are they mainstream fiction?

edit - How do some of you feel about Mario Vargas Llosa winning the Nobel prize for literature? And how do you compare him to Gabriel García Máquez? Perhaps I am prejudiced for personal reasons, but Vargas Llosa, while gifted and influential without a doubt, is not that gifted. I enjoyed his early books when we were both young, but then he went off the rails and his writing lost its focus, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by garza

Pardon my ignorance but I've never heard of any of those people except John Updike. He's okay, but not great.

What have I missed with that other group? Are they mainstream fiction?

Eddings and Feist are mainstream fantasy, and Collins is a mainstream young adult author. So yeah, pretty mainstream (if you read fantasy and/or YA books).

James

I don't read fantasy and I'm 70 years old so young adult lit has little appeal. Perhaps I haven't missed anything that would have interested me.

I am, however, interested in how others here feel about Mario Vargas Llosa winning the Nobel prize for literature. Is he an over-rated writer? Do you see him as being in the same class as Gabriel García Máquez?

Dan Brown must be up there with my nominations. Very poular although thankfully seems to be fading a bit now.

I am also going to add any fantasy novels - done to death with Lord of the Rings which actually I am afraid I never enjoyed either, so I maybe should add Tolkein to my list.

JK Rowling. Someone who had a great idea but not really a good writer. FIrst three books were actually enjoyable but a bit like all sequels the later one were not as good. Too rambling.

Anything with 'sexy' vampires in and that includes the whole of the Twilight stuff. Can't remember the author, not Ros Myers, she was in Spooks, but something like that! I know its terribly popular, rather worryingly so with younger teens, but I can't find the whole vampire thing therribly romantic. Perhaps it's because I automatically associate it with Hammer Horror's Dracula with Christopher Lee in an opera cloak. As for Nosferatu and Salem's Lot, I found them totally terrifying.

I hear Dan Brown named a lot in reference to over-rated, a hack, a terrible writer etc. etc. But my belief is that a book is only slightly different than movies. It's entertainment. If you try not to dig to deep and are able to suspend belief, it's really just a nice escape; it's entertaining and a good way to kill time. He might not be the Hemingway of sentence structure but he sure spins a damn good tale. That's just what I believe anyway. I mean, who of us in this forum has sold 300 million books. He must be doing something 'write'. Haha, bad joke.

Anyway...as for my opinion on over-rated...I'd probably go with Bret Easton Ellis. I actually love his books, but good lord he is wordy. Glamorama and American Psycho could both have been much shorter and still gotten the point across with just as much conveyed emotion. I think Paluhniuk is a great example of 'less is more'. I've read 7 of his books and they're great, but kind of getting old. His writing style is very different.

Originally Posted by Cressida

I am also going to add any fantasy novels - done to death with Lord of the Rings which actually I am afraid I never enjoyed either, so I maybe should add Tolkein to my list.

JK Rowling. Someone who had a great idea but not really a good writer. First three books were actually enjoyable but a bit like all sequels the later one were not as good. Too rambling.

While I loved his stuff when I was younger, I agree about Tolkien. Very hard for me to read now. The Hobbit and LoTR were really what exposed me to fantasy, and for that I'll always like 'em. The first time I read the chapter in the Mines of Moria it scared the pants off me.

Rowling, for a writer who's found mainstream success, is quite good, although I agree that her latter books were worse. I've been rereading her earlier ones and the writing really is impeccable, so far as I can judge.

I'm yet to read a Dan Brown novel, and don't plan on it from what I've heard. What I see in stuff like his (from seeing the movies, anyway), and in stuff like Twilight, is they pander to base-level emotions that have a lot of mainstream appeal. The perfect, dreamy mate, or the secret to the worldwide religion. But hey, if making money is what these books aim to do, who's to say they're doing anything wrong.

Stephanie Meyer. No contest. She was the one who ruined Vampires because once the Twilight series came out that's what have the books that got cranked out by the publishers were: tragic vampire-human love stories.

Originally Posted by caelum

Rowling, for a writer who's found mainstream success, is quite good, although I agree that her latter books were worse. I've been rereading her earlier ones and the writing really is impeccable, so far as I can judge.

I would agree with your there. I think she was writing, or trying to write for a different audience with the later novels and this was her downfall;only in my personal opinion of course. Books 1-3 were lovely and worked perfectly for children. Book 4 was OK but 5-7 seemed to be aimed at too wide a spread and for me didn't work for any of them.

Yes I am sure Dan Brown is entertaining if you like that kind of thing - good luck to you, we all have different tastes. Angels and Demons was horrible though and I couldn't finish it. Too gory.

Stephenie Meyer is top f my list as well. Today I asked a kid what a 'real' vampire was: she described Twilight Vampires, not even the barest hint of Dracula, or even Underworld, for heavens (or hells XD) sake! She was amazed when I told her they originally died in the sun.
I'm finding Naomi Novik to be a bit hackneyed. Temeraire was good (I mainly liked it for the idea: Musketeers! Onto teh dragon!) but it just gets worse and worse from there, yet she still manages excellent reviews/

I've never read Stepahie Meyer so I can't judge on her writing but think she should be on the list anyway as she appears to have spawned all this romantic vampire craze.

I have actually started to avoid reading things requesting reviews as they always begin 'another story about lovesick handsome bloodsuckers'. I mean how DOES that work? I am afraid I must be too old as every time I think vampire I think Vlad the Impaler - not a romantic image nor is a tryst in a coffin filled with Transylvania soil I imagine!

I think the average age of the twilight fan seems about 14 which is worrying in itself (I am a teacher these days so I see and hear a good deal of this Twilight stuff unfortunately).

Actually while I am ranting I thought I might add Danielle Steel to my list. An author who constantly appears on the top seller shelves and who has written at least 400 books all with apparently the same plot summary. I was bought one for Christmas once and am still in shock.

Daniella Steel's output was nothing compared to Erle Stanley Gardner, AKA A.A. Fair and about half a dozen other names who wrote very generic detective stories, I don't know what his total output was but it must have been massive, possibly one of the most prolific authors ever. When I was a 16-17 year old library assistant he was massively popular.
Whilst it is easy to knock the content of authors like him, Ms Meyer and Ms Steele they do have the advantage that they turn people into fluent readers by the sheer quantity of script of theirs that gets devoured, and the percentage that go on to read more challenging material might never have achieved that without them. There is one sense in which I don't really care what teenagers read so long as they are reading something, at least it can be a stepping stone.

Actually Olly, you have a good point there about going on to read other things.

I seem to remember in my teenage years reading loads of formulaic Jean Plaidy novels which just encouraged me in the idea of books and reading generally - I wouldn't read that kind of thing now although I do like CJ Sansom. They were terriibly romantic unlike the shocking Rosemary Rogers books we swapped on the school bus - we could have probably done without those - although admittedly they delivered far more that purloined copies of 1970's Cosmopolitan ever did. Perhaps they account for the inclusion of a deleted scene in most of my own literary efforts.

As for Stephanie Meyer, I am still inclined to castigate her. Every time I teach The Solar System at Key Stage 3 I have to remonstrate with little girls mooning over Robert Pattinson pictures in the back of their planners. Grrr!