Overrated authors

Not in any way trying to be inflammatory, but just to say if you read something like Dance Macabre, King's book length essay on horror media, you see he talks about early influences with great honesty and enthusiasm.

It is very often easy to spot the source material for King's efforts, but that doesn't always mean they don't work. The Shining feels a lot like an expansion of ideas touched upon in Richard Matheson's short story Madhouse, but I still think it's a pretty good novel.

My main problem with him is not the lack of originality, it's the long windedness. In that regard, he's not the only best selling author who past a certain point in their career could no longer be reigned in by an editor. It's quite a common problem actually.
And it seems that there is a readership that actually does think they're getting more for their money when they get a book that's a doorstop. So I think longwindedness is encouraged by the readership, and consequently tolerated by editors in authors who are stars.
Unfortunately.
 
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RimWorlder said:
This is an OPINION thread. I've not taken issue with anyone else's opinion and expect the same courtesy.
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Ah, don't be so touchy and read my post again, it is not an attack, or discourteous. It is pretty commonplace, within a discussion, to ask someone to support a statement with evidence. Having read a lot of SK, and liked some but not others, the only sense of 'familiarity' I got was his own repetition within his works. It may well be that I just haven't read the right other authors, at the right times, to spot the similarities. I would have been genuinely interested to know the works he is meant to have copied. I wouldn't describe myself as an SK fan, but may well now have a read of Dance Macabre to see what that says.

I honestly wanted to know what people thought constituted theft/plagiarism and to be given some examples. I frequently hear Campbell cited as a great influence in this genre. Yet I have struggled to enjoy his 3 works I have read so far. IMO anyone that has copied him has probably improved upon it. Most authors grow up reading voraciously and I fail to see how they cannot absorb a great deal from their predecessors. I've dabbled with some plot sketches myself, but actually find that everything seems familiar in some way. But then why worry about that? I've read enough books that seem to follow a set formula, almost like a literary colour by numbers.

Probably my favourite modern SF is Ian M Banks with his Culture books. Yet I can honestly say there is no individual idea in them that I haven't come across several times before. I just like the way he hangs it all together and tells a story. I'm currently going through a phase of old collections of short stories. Many of which are compiled from stories previously published in the early pulp magazines. I am constantly surprised by how familiar some of them seem, yet their publish dates are before I was born, and I've definitely not read them before. But many are pretty rough around the edges and you can see that things have become more polished.
 
homosap said:
I frequently hear Campbell cited as a great influence in this genre.
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If this is the Campbell I think you're referring to his influence was editorial rather than through his fiction.

It's frequently pointed out to me that the drones in my books are very Banksian and I'm prepared to hold up my hand and admit that yes they are. However, cheeky drones/ artificial intelligences were around long before Banks. They were there in Star Wars and in other films like Dark Star, and they have appeared in numerous books. Plagiarism? I don't think so - more a case of building on the foundations laid down by numerous other SF writer's .
 
nealasher said:
If this is the Campbell I think you're referring to his influence was editorial rather than through his fiction.

It's frequently pointed out to me that the drones in my books are very Banksian and I'm prepared to hold up my hand and admit that yes they are. However, cheeky drones/ artificial intelligences were around long before Banks. They were there in Star Wars and in other films like Dark Star, and they have appeared in numerous books. Plagiarism? I don't think so - more a case of building on the foundations laid down by numerous other SF writer's .
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Neal, yes you are on the right Campbell, editorial would explain a lot. As for the rest I totally agree and that is basically my point. I've read all of your books, as you know, and thoroughly enjoyed them. However, as with Banks, I'm sure I could point out similarities to others through your works. But this goes for every book I've ever read. Make a rough synopsis of any book, just one paragraph, and that will resemble the same paragraph done for other books. It is not until you get into finer detail that variations arise.

I tend to keep things simple, did I enjoy a book or not? If yes then end of analysis, if no then I may try to think about why not, but probably will just move on and forget it. I've always had my doubts about over analysing books and particularly conclusions drawn re authors intent/frame of mind, especially when said author is dead. For me it doesn't bring value and can even be classed as stripping away some of the magic.
 
I try to avoid over-analysis of books, which is difficult because I'm so involved in the process that produces them. Really, I've read a lot of SF and have not read anything totally 'new' since I was a teenager. I've read new styles, new characters, new plots, but in every one of them there's always something that can be focused on that has been done before. For me, same as you homosap, it comes down to entertainment and enjoyment. Often, on my blog, my main recommendation of a book is that I picked it up and didn't want to put it down - end of. But of course, that rather defeats the many long discussions held on message boards such as these.
 
Homosap,

I wasn't taking offense. I was responding to your statement and request for 'support' by stating that I was offering an opinion and felt no obligation to back it up.

I thought it was pretty straight forward of me to say that my opinion was probably unreasonable.

If you want to get into plagarism: would my contention about King stand up in a court of law? No. Have any of the authors that I view as having been ripped off protested? No.

Do I find his work too derivative of others to justify putting my money in his pocket? Yes.

Do I personally think that he is a hack who has gotten far too much fame and glory for a simple re-treading of other's work? Yes.

Is my opinion of him worth anything in the greater scheme of things? No. Have I devoted a webpage to my opinion and sent letters to publishers and picketed outside of book stores? No.

See - I offered my simple opinion on the subject at hand which was - who do I think is overrated. I added a few stronger words regarding that opinion of my chosen target. In reality, nothing I said is any more or less valid than any of the other opinions that were offered here.

I too happen to disagree with some other's picks. If you don't like so-and-so's stories, there must be something wrong with you, especially since I happen to enjoy his/her works.

This is nothing more than hyperbole. We could all get equally hot and bothered by a 'who's the most underrated' thread.

Whether I support my position or not is not going to change anyone else's reading selections. If someone hadn't put this thread up, no one would know my opinion of King.

So, I'm not offended, or getting bent out of shape, I don't feel I'm being attacked, I'm not attacking anyone, this is all just opinion-based blather and, given the subject at hand, it should be kept at that level.

(Btw, one of King's favorite quotes, the one about liking small children so much he's got one's brains in a jar or whatever, was 'stolen' from another author. The guy can't even be original when it comes to sound bites for TV. And - grin - I'm just needling you now...)

Now, as for Campbell; the guy was a 'fascist' - or at least propounded that political position; he also thought that Hubbard was a new messiah and could brow-beat just about anyone to death if he had a mind to, but - he also discovered and encouraged most of the authors who would go on to become the father's of the golden age of SF. Astounding magazine was his bully pulpit, and he was often the originator of many of the concepts that his author's handled so well. He suggested the 3 laws of robotics to Asimov (and look how many stories and novels Ike got out of those!). He changed the course of pulp-based SF from formulaic blood-and-thunder to the effects that science had on people. It wasn't enough to have a mad scientist invent some new technology - the story had to include motivations for the mad professor and had to show how the new tech affected him or the people around it. Heinlein's 'roads must roll' is a good example: hey- moving sidewalks wasn't enough; a whole society was altered by the tech and RAH illustrated how that was so - and Campbell was behind the whole thing.

His own stories are considered seminal works of the early days, and everyone ought to know 'Who Goes There?', which was made into the movie The Thing (twice).

Hey, the wife is calling from the bedroom, so I have to (mercifully) cut this short...
 
I'm going to get flamed for this, but what the hell:

Douglas Adams.

I guess I feel this way about his work because before I had read HGTTG, I had read a similar novel called Venus On The Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer, under the pseudonym of "Kilgore Trout".

Fans of Kurt Vonnegut should recognize the name "Kilgore Trout" from his various novels, where Trout would write these strange novels. Farmer wrote Venus in the same writing style of Trout, and the story revolved around the Earth being destroyed and a human having to leave it with an unhuman companion.

I can't remember all of the details, since it's been over 30 years since I've read it, but I remember reading HGTTG shortly thereafter and seeing too many similarities in plot, etc. to Venus. Between the two of them, I felt that Venus was the better of the two.

Here is a little article I had found that gives some background on the book:


As a parting shot, I've heard several fans comment on Adams' works getting worse with each novel.

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No flaming here - agree 100%.

I was "annoyed" at the attention that Adams got for his first effort when I saw it as a bad re-hash of much better humorous SF by much better writers - Venus, much of the stuff by EF Russell and comedies by Harry Harrison and Malzberg.

When I read Hitchhikers, the thought that kept going through my head was that here was someone intimately NOT familiar with SF, who was trying to poke fun at its themes and archetypes without having the background to do so.

It reminded me tremendously of Space Balls (or the other way around) - the movie. Yet another bad attempt by people who don't know SF to use it as a vehicle for humor.

It grated on me like one of those socially inept people who keeps on trying to inject themselves into a conversation without knowing the subject under discussion.

Boring. Annoying. Ham handed. And those are probably the very reasons why it was picked up for a TV series, a radio series and a movie - it wasn't really science fiction, so the production companies were able to justify it. And they were right, it isn't really science fiction.

It left me so cold that I've not bothered to read anything else by him since.

If you want another unsung classic that is, in many ways the kind of SCIENCE FICTION story that Adams supposedly wrote, find a copy of THE BUTTERFLY KID by Chester Anderson.
 
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What I wrote these posts about this book in other threads a while back:

A then-friend of mine at college, continuously waved this book in my face as a lacerating lampoon of "all that scifi crap I liked". What a surprise when I finally got around to reading it , that underneath the "wacky" humorous veneer, it wanted to be like "all that scifi crap", real bad, and on that level, it was average...
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Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
-is not my favorite anything. If humor were beer, HGttG would be a Coors Lite.
Mildly, mildly,mildly amusing. Humor flavored.
I' m always amazed when people pick this as their favorite SF book. How is that possible?
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And not amusing enough to compel me to read sequels. And it's not that "British humor is too sophisticated for Americans" either. I like Monty Python, Goon Show,Peter Sellers, etc, etc.
I like a lot of British humor actually. I like what a lot of people call dry or dead pan humor.

And I know people will be shocked, but I don't think fans giving 42 as an arbitrary answer to things is the absolute ****ing funniest thing that you could possibly do while living.

Quite frankly I don't think 42 is a very funny number. 29 is much funnier.So is 14.


And it's not that I hate this book. I found it to be very good natured, and I find some value in that. It's just overrated.
 
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Arthurfrayn,

sounds very similar to my own reactions. I guess you could sum it up in this way:

its like someone put on a propeller-beanie, walked into an SF convention and started declaiming "I'm a sci fi fan", when their only experience with the genre was a single episode of Land of the Giants.

Its funny how the folks who either are not from the traditional ranks, or who publicly divorce themselves from the community, are the ones who achieve wider acclaim and noteriety: Vonnegut and Ellison both left in a very public manner. Adams and Crichton didn't come from the tradition. All can be found in the library in the "literature" section; all are riding the hollywood gravy train.

I'll not criticise Ellison or Vonnegut as I think their work has merit (at least some of it) and Ellison seems to have ended his feud (not to mention his championing of artists' rights), but the latter two:

of them, Crichton is the worst. A bad horror/alien invasion novel, a bad time travel novel, an ok genetics/frankenstein's monster novel, an ok mind-control through technology novel and a bad, if seminal, alien body-snatchers novel. But boy is he the darling of those who want to protray anti-science SF and boy does he struggle to stay in the 'mainstream'.
 
its like someone put on a propeller-beanie, walked into an SF convention and started declaiming "I'm a sci fi fan", when their only experience with the genre was a single episode of Land of the Giants.
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Love that. :D

Don't share your total animosity about Crichton -I like The Andromeda Strain and Congo- I thought they were very entertaining. Sphere is another story, and the movie is even more guilty of the crimes you describe. It feels all through the film as if director Barry Levinson and screen writer Kurt Wimmer somehow think they're making a film above the genre, and the conclusion they come to at the end is such a sophomoric attempt at profound SF it makes you cringe.

It does confound me how Crichton manages to not be regarded as an SF writer.
 
I think Ben Bova is very overrated. He features prominently at the bookstore. All I've read of his is Mars: A manned expedition to Mars finds something that looks like the remains of an ancient civilization, but it turns out it's just some rocks. Can't believe that made it into print.
 
Terry Pratchett - the same thing as with Adams. Where shold I laugh ? After a good sleep I am falling in when traying to read his books.
 
Interesting. I'm reading my first Pratchett book based on glowing recommendations on sites like this (and not getting through it very fast) and whereas it's funny in an understated Brit way, it's nothing I laugh out loud over. Like you do when reading Tom Sharpe, for instance. Or Adams.
 
Its funny how the folks who either are not from the traditional ranks, or who publicly divorce themselves from the community, are the ones who achieve wider acclaim and noteriety: Vonnegut and Ellison both left in a very public manner
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I fail to see anything odd about the idea that if a writer leaves a smaller genre for the mainstream that they will acheive wider acclaim and notoriety It's pretty obvious.

I DO find it odd that you would say that Crichton, with so many best-sellers to his name "struggles" to stay in the mainstream.
 
Crichton

:oMaybe that's because the "mainstream" has jumped its banks and changed course. Crichton who was "mainstream" back in the day is probably not so today. The same can also be said about a number of very talented writers who are now struggling to find a place in a "mainstream" which smacks more of fantasy than SciFi.

I hope that doesn't sound too much like a rant.
 
lin,

I'm not surprised that once in the mainstream these authors achieve higher visibility.

What I was trying to get at was that they first have to go through a phase of publicly distancing themselves from "scifi" in order to get there.

There are plenty of others who who sold lots of movie rights, moved on to other genres, etc., without dissing the community that gave them their start - and interestingly enough, while they are higher profile in professional writing circles, they're not household names (Koontz and Matheson being two examples of this).
 
Wiggin said:
I think Ben Bova is very overrated. He features prominently at the bookstore. All I've read of his is Mars: A manned expedition to Mars finds something that looks like the remains of an ancient civilization, but it turns out it's just some rocks. Can't believe that made it into print.
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I'll agree that much of Ben's work over the years has been journeyman at best. However, I think a lot of his "rating" is due in large part to his editorial talent; he's not a bad writer and has some interesting ideas, he just doesn't have that extra little bit of oomph in his stuff. On the other hand, he is well-placed to sell a novel now and then and I'm sure that his co-workers and friends in the biz are more than happy to give him good pr and good distribution in exchange for all of the positives he's given them over the years.
 
I'd like to know why you think The Andromeda Strain is a bad novel. Care to go into that a little bit?
 
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