Books I didn’t finish

Here are some books I started reading but didn’t finish. There might be others I’ve forgotten about — these are mostly ones that showed up on someone’s list of best SF or fantasy books.

  • Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter
    • It might be a good book, but it was too science-y for me.
  • Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
    • It’s a long book, and I wasn’t going to read it all if it didn’t seem to have anything to offer me.
  • Dayworld by Philip José Farmer
    • After reading To Your Scattered Bodies Go and some of this one, I decided Farmer wasn’t the author for me.
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
    • Despite my enjoyment of some of Gaiman’s other works, and despite other people’s love of this book, I didn’t find it interesting.
  • Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind
    • It’s poorly written, and the story and characters are mostly reminiscent of other books you’ve read before.
  • Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
    • This isn’t a bad book. But if I’m going to read a book that’s 1000 pages long it has to be brilliant.
  • Redwall by Brian Jacques
    • It’s just for kids. Adults will find the events inconsistent and unbelievable.
  • Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
    • It’s just for kids. Adults will throw it across the room before they finish it.
  • Resurrection Man by Sean Stewart
    • Similar to my reaction to American Gods, I just didn’t find this story very interesting.
  • Hunter’s Oath by Michelle West
    • It’s not a bad book but it didn’t do it for me.
  • The Once and Future King by T. H. White
    • It didn’t grab me. I’ve decided that my version of the story of King Arthur is The Mists of Avalon.
  • Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn
    • Although I’m interested in the Star Wars universe, and other people like it a lot, it didn’t grab me.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019 at 8:25 pm and is filed under My thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Books I didn’t finish”

  1. Dave Switzer Says:

    I read a fair amount of “The Iron Dragon’s Daughter” by Michael Swanwick — lots of people think it’s great, but it wasn’t for me.

  2. Dave Switzer Says:

    Although I’m fond of its 2 predecessors, the middle of “Long Hot Summoning” by Tanya Huff was a bit boring.

    Lots of people like “The World of Null-A” by A. E. van Vogt but I found it baffling.

  3. Dave Switzer Says:

    “Journey to Aprilioth” by Eileen Kernaghan doesn’t have characters or situations that distinguish it from any other fantasy.

    In “Telempath” by Spider Robinson the main character kills his own father without enough explanation.

  4. Dave Switzer Says:

    I like a lot of J. Michael Straczynski’s work but “Wonder Woman: Odyssey” isn’t for me — too much violence and mysterious gods, and not enough interesting story.

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