I hate leaving books unfinished...

[darkelf105]

I hate leaving books unfinished once I've started them, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. 

That being said, I think it's time I said adieu to George R.R. Martin's  A Game of Thrones. It isn't a bad novel, far from it, but I can feel the series start to go the way of many a popular epic fantasy series. There is too much testosterone and not enough variation in characterizations and settings to keep my interest. That being said, Martin is a helluva writer and I'm sad that with the exception of Jon Snow, there aren't any characters in his novel that I really care what happens to.  I got to page 150 and put it down and haven't felt too compelled to pick it up since. That's usually a sign of a bad reader/book relationship, at least for me. I am strong proponent of Nancy Pearl's rule of putting a book down after one hundred pages (well for my age) if it isn't doing anything much for you (for those of you in the 50+ age, she suggests stopping after fifty bad pages). Perhaps I will come back to it some day as The Song of Ice and Fire is incredibly popular with a diverse group of readers at the library where I work, many of them middle aged and of both sexes, so maybe it's a generational thing? Perhaps I will understand the appeal of these sorts of novels when I'm older. 

And I know, there are some of you scratching your heads because Martin is a superior writer and I wolf down works by far less talented writers. But I read those writers when I wasn't so picky and they got stuck in my reader's palette.  Does anyone feel like sharing the books they love, but hate admitting that they love? We all know mine is the Legend of Drizzt series. How about yours? How has your taste in reading material become different since you've grown older?

Speaking of reader/book relationships, what  are your thoughts on that? How do you tell if a book or hell comic or game isn't working for you storywise?

C'mon bookish peeps, share with me!

Comments

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Animorphs. Kids that turn into animals and fight the alien invasion. And the strongest character is a girl? Okay so everyone else found the aliens hokey, and the series slid downhill after volume 10 or so, but whatever. I <3 my animorphs.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Gotta admit, I read quite a few of those as well. Just didn't lurv them as much as you or rokk_lobster. There was series about magicians that scholastic did that came out at about the same time so I never really rocked the Animorph thing. Besides, I dunno if Animorphs beats Drizzt :).

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Hmm I am not sure. Drizzt v. normal kids is no contest, but drizzt v. Ax? He has 4 eyes and and can change into animals. And well... all they would have to do is wait for Drizzt to get emo and take him out.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Lol, I meant that animorphs could not be a worse series to admit reading than Drizzt. Of course they could take Drizzt...maybe.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I did not just read the series. I was an official fanclub member. And had posters and keychains :P

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!!!!!!! I did NOT know that.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

Yep if you ever see any pictures of me from junior high you will see I have the official necklace.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Pulpy vampire novels (and pulpy horror novels in general, but I have an especial love of vampires). Especially the kind aimed at women with lots of sex mixed in with the violence. XD

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Lol, I don't think I ever went through that stage (although I obviously love me some Hellsing), but does Lestat count? Because I read Anne Rice all the way to "Memnoch the Devil"? I think....well, I stopped at the one where she prentened she was Dante and never went back.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm not sure if it counts. Depends on who you ask, I suppose.

Me, I'm still in that stage and not likely to ever leave it. I've liked vampire pulp ever since I discovered I had a sexuality. I still remember when I discovered I had a vampire fetish (and at the same time discovered the existence of anime) when Vampire Hunter D came on TBS late one night. I wondered with a detached sort of curiosity why it seemed like my brains were melting out my ears and have been hooked ever since. I was fourteen.

It's kind of embarrassing since vampires and their ilk are popular enough to be an unfashionable fetish these days, but once you're in the midst of anime fandom, there's only so much you can really be embarassed over a bad vampire novel here and there...

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Lol, vampires are nothing to be ashamed off, I think? I'm still hooked on dark elves. I read my first Salvatore novel in the fifth grade have kept reading since, all 26 books and various anthologies. I read EVERYTHING with darks elves in it, no matter how bad or how not like Forgotten Realms drow they really are....I usually have to keep my gleeful love of it from my more literary friends. They don't understand the appeal. Neither do I come to think of it. I guess when you're young enough, things speak to that part of your psyche you never really poked that much and then you're hooked forever more, it's like it become one of the themes by which you live the story of life.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I never got into the directly D&D related thing at all, but elves? SURE. Especially things like dark elves, what with the exotic features and the EVIL. (Are we sensing a theme here? orz)

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Yes, the exotic and the evil, definitely a turn on. Although I think I like Drizzt because he was the first hero that I ever read about that turned his back on a whole damn society and rejected an entire world/worldview to make his own way into the unknown. When you're in the fifth grade, that's pretty damn impressive. But then as I got older, was definitely more a fan of the brooding, evil, oh so pretty dark elves. I loved "The War of the Spider Queen" and can actually honestly recommend it as good read(well for that sort of fantasy sub-genre) to non-D&D readers. But a love of D&D dungeon crawlers and hack n' slash is definitely another one I keep from my Oprah book club reading friends.

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Although I do admit I have a yen for pulpy horror. Ramsey Campbell's "The Overnight" is still one of my favorite horror novels. Nothing like ghostly mayhem in a bookstore. And I eat up Bentley Little. I did go through a reading phase where I read nothing but books about the Devil/Satanists take over a small town and cause the residents to indulge in all kinds of horrid sin and perversity. Gasp, the atrocities! I have no idea what that was about, I think the incredulous non-believer in me just couldn't wrap my brain around it and was utterly titillated by reading a horror/nightmare scenario that was so very far from what I'm scared of.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Oh, the demon invasion sinking people into a den of sexual perversity... Yes! ♥

XD

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

See, I'm glad some one know what I'm talking about. I tried to explain that to a friend who doesn't read horror at all...and well, she just got that blank, puzzled face. I think her words were: "Satanists? Take over a town...and make people to naughty things. And then one lone man tries to stop with the, erm, the help of God? What the hell are you reading?"

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I am less familiar with the novel form, but I am VERY familiar with the yaoi form! Hee. I, I like demons. A lot. It's tangential to the vampire thing. XD

[darkelf105.livejournal.com]

Lol, you're not missing much in the novel form. Like I said, I think it's totally shameful titillation on my part. And yesh, I too enjoy demons in my yaoi....because they are like vampires, in a lot of ways.