Hits and Misses in Fiction

[rj_anderson]

sartorias aka Sherwood Smith has a fascinating discussion going over on her LJ about when you only like one (or, if they're prolific, two or three) of an author's works and bounce off the rest. So far the responses have mostly been people commisserating and sharing which authors and which books affected them this way, but there's also been some discussion of why this happens.

I don't think there's any one answer to that question myself -- the reasons are as diverse as the individual readers. Sometimes the author undergoes an ideological or philosophical transformation between books (or even just becomes bolder about expressing the views they already had) which leads to a irreconcilable conflict of my thinking and theirs, or pushes my tolerance for those differences over the limit. (See: Philip Pullman.) Sometimes it turns out that the things I loved best about the author's first book -- the style, the tone, the atmosphere -- don't carry over into subsequent novels because they were a feature of that story, not the author's writing as a whole (such as Beagle's The Last Unicorn, which I mentioned in the comments of Sherwood's post). And sometimes I eagerly expect certain things from a series or sequel to a book I really loved, only to find that the author had a completely different plan and veers off in a direction that doesn't interest me at all (I've heard several readers say this about Maria Snyder's Study books, for instance).

Then there's the rarer phenomenon when you love an author's prose but not their poetry (or essays, or what-have-you); or you think them brilliant scriptwriters (or lyricists) but terrible novelists, or the other way around. The ability to put together words in an arrangement that pleases you in one medium doesn't always carry over to others, and that can cause this kind of dissonance as well.

What about you? If you have a much-loved book or books by a certain author but found that most or all of their other works left you cold, what were your reasons for feeling that way? Feel free to comment on either my post or sartorias's as it pleases you; I'll see it in either case.

Comments

[rj_anderson]

I know exactly what you mean about Piers Anthony. Our high school library had only one carousel of fantasy/SF books so I ended up at least trying pretty much every book on it (except for a couple of yellowed paperbacks featuring well-endowed space ladies being menaced by tentacle aliens, at which I drew the line), including Anthony's Xanth and Adept series. It was... uh... an experience, I guess? So much that was readable and even charming, so much O_o.

I also disliked "Spindle's End" and thought "Rose Daughter" superfluous at best and annoying at worst -- I mean, "Beauty" was already a great book, why do we need to retell it a different way? But you've done a great job of putting your finger on why I gravitate to certain fairy tale retellings and bounce hard off of others.

Which Sherry Thomas books would you recommend? I've never read her.

[anghraine]

So much that was readable and even charming, so much O_o is definitely Piers Anthony in a nutshell!

I'm completely with you on Rose Daughter as well. It's an overused term, but it felt very tryhard to me, like she had to make up for the pleasantness of Beauty or something.

Sherry Thomas is my favourite romance author—I don't know if you read much of that? Probably my favourite of hers is the horribly titled Ravishing the Heiress, which plunks you down in a contented arranged marriage several years in and gradually reveals the past and future of the couple. The format can be frustrating, but also engaging, and it's pretty much her trademark. I also liked Not Quite a Husband, also late Victorian, about an angsty separated couple—he's a dazzlingly attractive younger son/mathematician, she's a driven, intense doctor. Not a combination I've ever seen before! It also goes for plopping you in the middle of the drama and gradually revealing what happened.