Overrated Authors?

[J.Seishu]

James ellroy is a very overrated author. His stories aren't that bad in themselves. I just think his writing style is horrible. Way too much swearing and jumps in the plot. It get's very frustrasting and confusing to read and L.A confidential that could have been such an awesome book became a real pain rather than entertainment.

[Amelia]

Wilbur Smith, I'm not sure how widely read he is in other parts of the globe but he's very popular here in Southern Africa. I find him poorly researched and his style patronising. Parricia Cornwall and Dan Brown also leave me cold.

YES! Wilbur Smith was always getting my vote as the most overrated author- I'm glad I'm not alone.
He's big enough here in Australia, and I used to lap it up, especially all the ancient Egypt Taita novels. Now though, I just find it painfully sexist and patronising. It makes me so mad, I have to stop reading.

Dan Brown too. Not great writing, just big sensationalist claims. I read a non-fiction book called The Jesus Scrolls years ago (not sure who the author was), and it was saying the same things in The Da Vinci Code, so it's not the first time things like that were said.

[Breeze530]

Ayn Rand definitely! Her characters are so flat & preachy.
Philippa Gregory. I sort of liked The Other Bolyn Girl, but couldn't finish anything else I tried of hers.

Hemingway was a big blow-hard as far as I'm concerned & so was William Faulkner.

Elizabeth Peters (that dumb Equptian series), Dorothy L. Sayers is just stupid slapstick most of the time, Anna Quindlen, Patricia Cornwall, Anne Perry (except the Monk series), Mitch Albom, James Patterson & Phillip Roth. I think that's enough for now.

[readingaddict]

Stephanie Meyer - not a good author at all, even for the teenage audience that she is aimed at
Janet Evanovich - just couldn't understand why she is so popular! I tried and finished the first book but have absolutely no intention of reading any of her other books.

[jemado]

I'm yet to find an author who is over-rated. But I did read one book that I felt got way more thumbs up than I was willing to give (and this is not going to make me popular) I could not for the life of me get into "On the road" by Jack Kerouac.

I can fully relate. I started "On the Road" about 6 months ago and I just couldn't enjoy it. I made it about halfway through before giving up. I don't necessarily think Kerouac's a bad writer, and I can see why he's such a popular beat writer, but it's just personally not my style. It seemed too disjointed and random. I won't go so far as to say I think he's overrated, especially since I've only read one (well half of one) of his books, but I can honestly say that I don't quite see the appeal there.

[ResearchScholar]

I start with the premise that most people are not very discerning. Consequently, I give a wide berth to anything that is a blockbuster. Writers who just provide momentary entertainment add nothing to the human condition. But then they are very "popular", and that makes them overrated.

I guess to each his own...

[Fee Verte]

I start with the premise that most people are not very discerning. Consequently, I give a wide berth to anything that is a blockbuster.

me too! Dan Brown's works are all stinkers but Clarissa, or, the History of a Young Lady, is the biggest stinker of all. God how I hate that book!

Dan Brown got rich through the very lucrative "paranoia / conspiracy market" and the fact that the Catholic Church were foolish enough to acknowledge his existence.

[soniakhan33]

I will go with Oscar Wild........

[oliviaemmer]

Stephanie Meyer!

[smellymonkey]

Martina Cole. I read one of her books and the actual story was good but her writing was dreadful constantly repeating herself making it really boring i have also heard that the rest of her books all consist of similar story lines.

[ResearchScholar]

Martina Cole. I read one of her books and the actual story was good but her writing was dreadful constantly repeating herself making it really boring i have also heard that the rest of her books all consist of similar story lines.

Hmmmm, Martina Cole. I had not heard of her until now, and so I took the trouble to google her. Wikipedia tends to explain why her work is as you say. She is a crime novelist and, in the words of Wikipedia, "Most of her novels feature a female protagonist or antihero, and some take place within the Irish community in and around London."

Actually, I think this is fair enough. She is writing for a niche market that happens to be fond of her particular interest. Most writers tend to stick to themes in which they are coversant, andi it is only the plots that change. I would be more worried if a well-known writer ventured into another genre of writing that only showed him/her to be totally clueless.

[Shasti]

Oooh - it's a bit of a guilty pleasure, having a dig at authors one has read and feels overrated, but stuff it...

VC Andrews. Flowers in the Attic and ensuing novels were all greedily passed around among our friends in high school - when a movie was made based on the first book, a bunch of us saved up our dollars and made a pilgrimage to the cinema..! But the truth is, we were just caught up in the hype of reading a sexed up soap opera - even I got fatigued by the third book. Of course there are some I know who probably still have a copy on their shelves (as a contributer wrote: At least they are reading. How true!).

Would this thread be complete without Jean M Auel? The 'Clan of the Cave Bear' series (AKA how to root your way through The Stone Age) was another excuse for many of us to read alot of 'soft porn lit' as a high schooler.

I agree with the Dan Brown dissenters. In my view, he basically plagarised 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' threw a few hastily made characters in (it does annoy me that his lead females can't be just intelligent - they have to be beautiful, built and attracted to his limp male lead) and made a straight line from point A to point B...

But, something I have to give these authors. They are published, famous and their books have made them wealthy individuals. I'll be happy when my own novel is finished and someone is interested in just the first one..!

[mjmooney]

Ken Follett. The Pillars Of The Earth and World Without End...excellent stories lost in Follet's telling of them.

Agreed. I really wanted to like "Pillars", but I had to give up on it, it was so badly written. Same went for Bernard Cornwell's "The Winter King".

Like so much genre fiction, these are what I call "he said, she said" books. All very literal, all plot, no psychology, little descriptive "sense of time and place".

Dan Brown is perhaps the ultimate example.

I guess I - usually - just prefer literature to popular fiction.

And unlike some other posters here, I love Hemingway and James Ellroy.

[Mairin]

I'd say Dan Brown is overrated, over overrated even. He really isn't that great a writer.

I absolutely agree!

[Perrywinkle47]

I once thought JK Rowling to be overrated as everybody used to talk about it but once I read all the sequels myself, I found all the talks about it to be fair enough. No author is over rated, its just that some connect to people more.