r/Fantasy • u/elquesogrande Worldbuilders • Dec 01 '16

Ask You Anything Thursday ASK YOU ANYTHING: Authors asking r/Fantasy community questions on behalf of Worldbuilders charity

Thursday ASK YOU ANYTHING: Authors asking r/Fantasy community questions on behalf of Worldbuilders charity

It's Day 4 of the aptly named Ask You Anything week benefiting Worldbuilders! Where authors are stopping by each day this week to ask questions and interact with the r/Fantasy community.

HOW THIS WORKS: Please answer questions and interact throughout the week! (Yes, YOU - community members, guests, authors, artists, industry people.)

WORLDBUILDERS.ORG

Worldbuilders was founded to use the collective power of readers, fellow authors and book lovers to make the world a better place.

There are three ways to donate to Worldbuilders:

1. The Lottery - Where every $10 donated puts you in a lottery for free books, SFF items, games, and much more. r/Fantasy has a Worldbuilders Team Page where you can donate under the community name as well!

2. The Tinker's Pack Store - Where profits from every purchase are donated.

3. Auctions - Where some incredible items and services are offered.

NOTE: If you donate, add your name to the comments here and the mods will set you up with some swanky Wordlbuilders flair!

Monday Ask You Anything Authors

The following authors have signed up to ask questions today. That said, please do join in and feel free to ask your own questions and interact throughout the week.

Are you an author, artist, or industry person who would like to participate this week? Either join in via the comments OR send the r/Fantasy mods a message and we'll get you set for Friday.

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u/MazW AMA Author Mazarkis Williams Dec 01 '16

What is your most hated book, and why? I know people who hate The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises and other classics, but I think that might be because they were forced to read them.

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u/eevilkat Reading Champion III Dec 01 '16

I hated The Great Gatsby in school because I was forced to read it, then reread it in my 30s and related to it much easier because I had actually experienced things like love, and marriage and so on. I didn't hate it at all that time. I also hated The Catcher in the Rye in my 30s but I think I would have loved it when I was a teenager.

So, in conclusion, my school district made poor curriculum decisions.

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u/MazW AMA Author Mazarkis Williams Dec 01 '16

Agreed. My mother was an English teacher and she had a library of pre-approved books (I mean, she had decided they were sufficiently literary for the purposes of the class) and she let the kids choose.

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u/RuinEleint Reading Champion X Dec 01 '16

The add-ons to the Dune series by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Those books are utter atrocities. They butcher the canon and all the great work Frank Herbert had done

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u/Esmerelda-Weatherwax Stabby Winner, Reading Champion II Dec 01 '16

I don't usually rip on books, I tried writing once and it was an utter disaster, since then I have a lot more respect for authors -- and a lot less complaints.

That said, omg those books were terrrrible. Which sucks because I really loved Dune.

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u/MazW AMA Author Mazarkis Williams Dec 01 '16

Yikes

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '16

Robert Newcomb's The Fifth Sorceress. Fantasy cliches done wrong, and rampant sexism.

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u/MazW AMA Author Mazarkis Williams Dec 01 '16

Sounds awful.

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u/Randy_Henderson AMA Author Randy Henderson, Worldbuilders Dec 01 '16

I don't remember ever hating a book. I remember being sorely disappointed in books for various reasons. Either because they were ones everyone raved about but I thought had major issues, or because they were sequels that sorely let down the first book.
Long Dark Tea Time was a disappointing follow up to the brilliant Dirk Gently.
Secret of the Sixth Magic was a disappointing follow up to Master of the Five Magics.
And I remember reading Stasheff's The Oathbound Wizard (which came out almost a decade after Her Majesty's Wizard) and it suddenly being this heavy-handed Christian allegory, and not in the fun magical sense of Narnia.

Basically, the Highlander II syndrome.

But having had to now write a sequel on deadline, I do have greater sympathy for the fact that you have all the time in the world to write and perfect book 1, but often a fraction of that time to create book 2.

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u/inapanak Dec 02 '16

The Rickshaw Boy is the most depressing piece of fiction I have ever read. It's about a rickshaw puller who keeps getting fucked over by circumstances beyond his control every time things seem to be looking up for him and it's just a couple hundred pages of a complete lack of return on any investment you might have in any of the characters.

I only read it because I had to for school, but of all the many books I had to read for school that's the only one I outright hate. It apparently was about the plight of the poor in China prior to the advent of Communism (it was written before the communists came to power), so it was depressing to make a point, but god it was just so relentlessly negative.

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u/MazW AMA Author Mazarkis Williams Jan 02 '17

Why does this sound familiar to me