Who are your least favorite authors.

[Erudite]

While I could probably bang out a list of authors I would never read, I can only judge those that I've read and I have to say my least favorite author is easily Dean Koontz.

[Breeze530]

I saw Jasper Fforde listed. He's a good example of the 1st book being a great original idea, but then he just tried to go on & on with a series that got worse & worse.

I have to say that I AM an Anne Rice fan, but I tend to like the 1st book of those that end up being series the best. I loved Interview & the Witching Hour, but both series went downhill after that as she churned out more books. She also has some great stand-a-lone books like Cry to Heaven. I think her latest attempt at Christian writing is so childish it's ridiculous. I think they should be listed as preadolescent.

Nora Roberts, Koontz & Steele are right up there too. I can't stand them. BTW, I used to be compelled to finish any book that I'd started. The older I get the more likely I am to just toss it aside. What a relief! I feel that I only have so many years to read, why waste it on trash.

[StephenKingman]

I saw Jasper Fforde listed. He's a good example of the 1st book being a great original idea, but then he just tried to go on & on with a series that got worse & worse.

I have to say that I AM an Anne Rice fan, but I tend to like the 1st book of those that end up being series the best. I loved Interview & the Witching Hour, but both series went downhill after that as she churned out more books. She also has some great stand-a-lone books like Cry to Heaven. I think her latest attempt at Christian writing is so childish it's ridiculous. I think they should be listed as preadolescent.

Nora Roberts, Koontz & Steele are right up there too. I can't stand them. BTW, I used to be compelled to finish any book that I'd started. The older I get the more likely I am to just toss it aside. What a relief! I feel that I only have so many years to read, why waste it on trash.

True life is very short! I havent read any Koontz books yet but have his Brother Odd series on my tbr list so it will be interesting to see if i take to his style at all. Will be at least the summer until i get around to it though.

[Perrywinkle47]

Sydney Sheldon

[Fran]

There are as many authors whose work I do not like as there are authors whose work I adore .... that's part of the balance of the universe I guess.

[Career Novelist]

My least favorite author is James Patterson, and not because of his writing but because he has taken writing and made it a business unlike any other author I've seen. He basically takes literary unknowns and has them write his books, then he markets them under his name with a credit to the real author and puts out about one every other month. Him being a huge marketing executive and guru before becoming a full time novelist, I can understand what he's doing, but it feels like he's turning writing into an assembly line of books for the sake of producing as much as he can and to me that's just wrong. Now, it doesn't hurt that his reported income is between $25M and $50M a year, but writing for me is an art you express from your heart not a quantity-based business you manipulate to bolster your net worth. Anyone agree or disagree?

[StephenKingman]

My least favorite author is James Patterson, and not because of his writing but because he has taken writing and made it a business unlike any other author I've seen. He basically takes literary unknowns and has them write his books, then he markets them under his name with a credit to the real author and puts out about one every other month. Him being a huge marketing executive and guru before becoming a full time novelist, I can understand what he's doing, but it feels like he's turning writing into an assembly line of books for the sake of producing as much as he can and to me that's just wrong. Now, it doesn't hurt that his reported income is between $25M and $50M a year, but writing for me is an art you express from your heart not a quantity-based business you manipulate to bolster your net worth. Anyone agree or disagree?

Yeah i agree with you there, you make a good point. Certainly once a successful author has made enough money with their first few books that money isnt an issue, then any writing after that point should come straight from an innate passion and not merely another cash cow blockbuster. I guess a lot of modern books follow this trend though, look at the Twilight saga, that could be written by a ten year old from India for all we know; the point is that millions of people lap up the predictable and teen-friendly plot of cute vampires and damsel in distress, also the Harry Potter books. Can JK Rowling really have felt the same passion writing the last book as she did the first? I would like to think so but the cynic in me suggests all she had to do was churn out a carbon copy of the last book, change a paragraph here and there and just sit back and watch the unstoppable marketing machine add another few zeros to her bank balance.

If i was a writer (wont happen!), and i felt that my latest book was merely a chore written to please others then i would give up.

[Browsers]

I have to disagree with you about James Patterson in one key regard. (This, by the way, is not my original thinking, but that of Andrew Vacchs who stopped in my store one day and pointed this out.)

Patterson put his ghost writers' names quite boldly on the front cover of the books. He makes no bones about the fact that he has "assistance" with the books.

Robert Tannenbaum, however, had Michael Gruber write all of his books. Once the contract ended, Gruber started writing on his own, but while he was ghost writing, Tannenbaum NEVER acknowledged Gruber at all. That sucks.

Having said all of this, I do agree that pulp factories are generally discouraging. On the other hand, the series books like Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew are now considered "classics" of their genre, and those had the same mercenary & ghosted approach to writing...

Scott Givens
Browsers' Bookstores
Albany & Corvallis, Oregon
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[Pansy Burke]

Right on, Scott!

[Lita]

Stephanie Meyer, and that's about it. I read her novels about a year ago, so that I could have an opinion about them, and it took me so long to finish them because I found them SO boring -_-. Dull books, I kinda regret reading them..

[Mairin]

Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Nicholas Sparks, this list goes on. Most of my problems with these authors are just the cut and paste same old crud that has no sense of ingenuity.

[StephenKingman]

Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Nicholas Sparks, this list goes on. Most of my problems with these authors are just the cut and paste same old crud that has no sense of ingenuity.

Your point about cut and paste is particularly valid with Dan Brown, in my opinion, im expecting his next novel to be a complete change of course and be about the plight of a single mom who is a stripper by night to pay the medical bills for her disabled son.....

[Mairin]

Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Nicholas Sparks, this list goes on. Most of my problems with these authors are just the cut and paste same old crud that has no sense of ingenuity.

Your point about cut and paste is particularly valid with Dan Brown, in my opinion, im expecting his next novel to be a complete change of course and be about the plight of a single mom who is a stripper by night to pay the medical bills for her disabled son.....

LOL That would be a change of pace for him anyway! So no more biblical mysteries and church cover-ups??

[StephenKingman]

Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, Dean Koontz, Nicholas Sparks, this list goes on. Most of my problems with these authors are just the cut and paste same old crud that has no sense of ingenuity.

Your point about cut and paste is particularly valid with Dan Brown, in my opinion, im expecting his next novel to be a complete change of course and be about the plight of a single mom who is a stripper by night to pay the medical bills for her disabled son.....

LOL That would be a change of pace for him anyway! So no more biblical mysteries and church cover-ups??

I think he has pretty much exhausted the whole hidden symbols and religious cover ups at this stage unless he wants to go down Tom Cruise territory and expose Scientology?!

[Mairin]

Your point about cut and paste is particularly valid with Dan Brown, in my opinion, im expecting his next novel to be a complete change of course and be about the plight of a single mom who is a stripper by night to pay the medical bills for her disabled son.....

LOL That would be a change of pace for him anyway! So no more biblical mysteries and church cover-ups??

I think he has pretty much exhausted the whole hidden symbols and religious cover ups at this stage unless he wants to go down Tom Cruise territory and expose Scientology?!

LOL Now that would be an interesting story! I love reading about crazy people!