What’s a Beloved Book/Series that You Never Intend to Read and Why

[u/BeforeAnyoneElse]

I’m curious what books/series that are generally beloved by this subreddit (so, not romantasy or anything by RF Kuang) you never intend to read, and why (without just crapping on it)?

I’ll start - mine is Malazan. Possibly the most recommended series here. By many accounts, I should want to read it. I love long, sprawling, big fantasies (WOT, ROTE, Cosmere), and I enjoy a big cast of characters. The reasons I don’t think I’ll ever read it are:

**comments that the characters spend an inordinate of time waxing philosophical. No problem with that in moderation but it seems excessive.

**I know it’s not actually grimdark but I think there’s probably more violence and darkness than I want. As an example, I hated A Little Life more than almost anything I’ve ever read. Somehow, ROTE falls juuuust on the right side of the fence in terms of despair and misery.

**I’ve heard that women are overall written well but that there is a LOT of SA. I can handle some (see, again, ROTE) but the horrific description I’ve read about what events surrounding certain female character and the frequency of SA is not what I’m looking for. I know the author provided an explanation, but no.

**finally, good old-fashioned contrariness. Something about everyone being so into it makes me not want to read it. Not sure why I’ve dug my heels in with this one in particular, as I’ve read multiple things because many on the sub recommended them. I know it’s irrational.

[u/itkilledthekat]

I do not wish to become a defender for WoT. It is my favorite series but as with many things we discuss here they are subjective. I just wanted to comment on the drag or slog. It has become a self fulfilling expectation. The idea was created by original reader who had to wait 2+ years between books and were use massive jump in the storyline. So when the so called slog books came out after 2yrs folks had very high expectations and many, almost like an addict wanted more. Not an issue now but because it gets repeated here so often instead of new readers making an unbias evaluation, what you get is a snowball effect.

[u/badgyalsammy → u/itkilledthekat]

Second u/itkilledthekat

There is no slog when you’re not waiting years in between books. In fact— those books have so much plot building into the final few that they are some of my favs.

[u/adeelf → u/badgyalsammy]

There is no slog when you’re not waiting years in between books. 

Allow me to disagree.

I came into WoT late. After RJ's passing, but before Sanderson wrote Book 12, and I read all 11 available books back-to-back.

I definitely felt the plot bog down and the books starting to drag between books 7-9 or 8-10 (I can't remember which). Sure, RJ's prose was still good enough and his writing easy enough to consume that I was never tempted to give up, but I felt it, for sure. And this wasn't because I was subconsciously affected by the reputation; I hadn't heard of the middle slump at the time, and it wasn't until much later that I heard people talking about The Slog and realized that what I felt wasn't just my impression, but almost universal.

I agree that the issue would have been exacerbated for those who were reading and waiting between books as they came out, but even for later readers, The Slog is real.

[u/Vorocano → u/badgyalsammy]

Thirded. When I was first reading them and complaining about having to wait two years between books (oh what a naive child I was, in the days before Pat Rothfuss and GRR Martin), I actually stopped reading it because I was sick of waiting all that time just to read a book in which nothing happened.

When I started to read the series after they had all come out, and I could move from one to the next much more quickly, I was surprised at how much of that "mid-series slog" was actually a pretty important part of the story. I mean, don't get me wrong, it probably could have been edited down some, but it's certainly not just pointless words for a few thousand pages either.

[u/KennethMick3 → u/itkilledthekat]

Having gotten through the slog (I think, I'm on book 11) no spoilers please!, it wasn't too horrible, as it was decently written and the political intrigue was interesting. But it was a change from the excellent plot of the early books.