Overrated books (a thread for grumps)

[Bastard]

I challenge you to explain how those two things are different.

Not liking the book is not the same as questioning the judgement of those who like it. Far from it. I may not like Twilight, but I understand it's mass appeal to the various demographics; it's simply not appealing to me. I don't like Murder She Wrote, but I can understand why my grandma likes it. I enjoy Heroes, but I understand the reasons of those who don't like it. We can go on and on.

I'm not saying that people who like overrated books have no judgment - nobody's tastes are going to overlap 100%. It's the general social consensus I'm challenging. And of course I'm just challenging it by saying I disagree with it.

Well, you're not really challenging it. You're just making a list of books you don't like. If you were actually trying to challenge it, you would make a bit of an effort to explain what what aspects of the "social consensus" is wrong in your opinion.

Like I said before, there are WAY too many different reasons that people like any given book for me to understand and address all of them. To demand that someone who says a book is overrated understand and then rebut every single reason why anyone anywhere likes that book is to set before them an impossible task...it's really just another way of saying that people who say books are overrated are jerks. And THAT we've already established.

Yet no one is asking you to. As you mentioned above, there's a "social consensus". Among all the different reasons, there are many common reasons. But, what I conclude is that you're either lazy or simply incapable of backing up your claims.

Books have their strength and weaknesses, it's really a matter of putting value to each... and that does vary from person to person, but as you mention... there's a social consensus, and you should at the very least challege that if anything. Abscent of that, one would be left to conclude that you might just be full of crap. Wouldn't you think so if the roles were reversed?

So, in all at the least you should provide what aspects of the book you didn't like, and then we can see if the value you have placed on those aspects really outweight the positives. For example, Perdido Street Station... you claim you didn't like the ending and are pretty much basing your overrated claim on it because of it. Is that really enough? Who knows, I haven't read it, but from what I've seen it has many many positives attiributes that might make your claim unwarranted... but not my place to argue it.

And since you're the challenger, I'd say the "burden of proof" falls on you... else, well I already mentioned what we would've to conclude.

 

[nquixote]

Not liking the book is not the same as questioning the judgement of those who like it. Far from it. I may not like Twilight, but I understand it's mass appeal to the various demographics; it's simply not appealing to me. I don't like Murder She Wrote, but I can understand why my grandma likes it. I enjoy Heroes, but I understand the reasons of those who don't like it. We can go on and on.

Hmm. I don't think you have to question the judgment of people who like X in order to call X overrated. Nor do I think you have to understand X's appeal.

On the one hand, I think I have a reasonably good idea why people like Ender's Game, and yet I think it's overrated. I don't question the judgment of the people who like it (in fact, all of my friends like it, and they've recommended many great books to me over the years).

On the other hand, there are books like the Sword of Truth series that I find offensively bad, and can't imagine why anyone would like. I still have no trouble saying they're overrated, since I can name lots of epic fantasy series that I think are far superior but that are not nearly as popular.

And on the third hand (my species has five, in case you were wondering), there are things like Twilight that just don't appeal to me at all, because they're in a class of things that don't appeal to me at all (teen dramas, vampire novels). So I wouldn't even venture to say whether Twilight is overrated or not, because I feel I lack the frame of reference to make a judgment.

Well, you're not really challenging it. You're just making a list of books you don't like. If you were actually trying to challenge it, you would make a bit of an effort to explain what what aspects of the "social consensus" is wrong in your opinion.

I don't think that there is a social consensus as to why books are good, only a consensus that they are or aren't good. There seems to be a general social consensus that Ender's Game is a good book, but different people have totally different reasons for liking it. If I argued against one of those reasons (which would itself just be me stating my opinions, not really a logical argument), someone else would just say "Well, I like it for a totally different reason than the one you just addressed." And so forth.

But, what I conclude is that you're either lazy or simply incapable of backing up your claims.

Remember that there is a 400 character limit on Amazon Listmania captions.

I've gone into great depth about why I think some of those books are overrated (Ender's Game, Red Mars, Revelation Space) on other threads in this forum. Others, like Narnia, the Sword of Truth, and the Wheel of Time, have received such a drubbing in public fora (and on these boards) that anything I said would be pretty redundant. As for the remaining four, I will wax eloquent on their shortcomings any time you like...

So, in all at the least you should provide what aspects of the book you didn't like, and then we can see if the value you have placed on those aspects really outweight the positives.

That's fair...although most people who know what we're talking about have probably made up their minds already!

For example, Perdido Street Station... you claim you didn't like the ending and are pretty much basing your overrated claim on it because of it. Is that really enough? Who knows, I haven't read it, but from what I've seen it has many many positives attiributes that might make your claim unwarranted... but not my place to argue it.

Actually, a lot of the knocks I've read about Perdido Street Station seem undeserved. A lot of people seem to think it has flat characters, but I thought the characters were mostly very well-rounded, original, and interesting.

Spoilers:
The primary flaw of the book, from my perspective, was how the author dealt with the character of Lin, who was my favorite character. She disappears halfway through the book, and turns out to be completely irrelevant to the story. At the end, just as we finally get to see her again, her brain is half sucked-out, and we get to spend a large portion of the book's remainder watching the other characters deal with the fact that she is now a vegetable, which is not only a bit disgusting and more than a bit tangential to the narrative, but merely drives home the fact that all of the early segments told from Lin's point of few were essentially wasted promise. Next, there is the matter of the deus-ex-machina ending; in order to produce a victory against the dreaded brain-sucking moths, the author is forced to transform the chaotic, whimsical, and utterly alien Weaver into essentially a benevolent, cuddly, near-omnipotent pet of Our Heroes. After the magic pet produces an anticlimactic resolution, we are treated to a bizarre and boring chapter about whether or not the birdman should be helped despite a rape he committed long ago; essentially, the end of the book becomes a dorm-room ethical argument. Then it ends, with no sequel. The bizarre, interminable, forced, boring ending dashes the book's promise on the rocks before our eyes; one gets the sense that the author is having a bit of a nasty laugh at our expense. People tend to love Perdido Street Station for the amazing world it creates, but I say that a world without a story is a world wasted, and a story without an ending is a poor story indeed.


There, how's that?

 

[Bond]

Aren't all value judgments equally empty exercises, though?

No.

Why do I have to understand why someone likes a book in order to declare why I don't like that book?

You don't---if all you want is to do is a lot of senseless raving. If you want anyone to think you remotely possess any unique insight, however, you need to bring something more to the table.

Most well-regarded and/or popular works are liked for many different reasons by many different people. Must one therefore understand and address each of those reasons in order to call the thing overrated? I certainly hope not.

When you say "overrated" you are making an implicit comparison between what you think is its value and what you perceive others think is its value. Notice both are dependent on your perception.

One should put things in context. One can say that obviously a gun is better than a knife. To kill someone perhaps, but not when it comes to making dinner.

I've gone into great depth about why I think some of those books are overrated (Ender's Game, Red Mars, Revelation Space) on other threads in this forum. Others, like Narnia, the Sword of Truth, and the Wheel of Time, have received such a drubbing in public fora (and on these boards) that anything I said would be pretty redundant. As for the remaining four, I will wax eloquent on their shortcomings any time you like...

If you perceive certain series to have "received such a drubbing in public fora" then why would you say they are "overrated"? If you have nothing to add to what others say you're not offering much insight. I don't even see you taking much of a stand against the current trends and fashions on this site. Now if you were to say something like Narnia is better than LotR, the Sword of Truth is better than aSoIaF, or Revelation Space is better than Hyperion, that might be intriguing. But your list of overrated books is a yawn. They do not really buck the trend or offer a controversial take. Even where I might strongly disagree, your contention is too vague and ill-defined to take issue with.

 

[nquixote]

When you say "overrated" you are making an implicit comparison between what you think is its value and what you perceive others think is its value. Notice both are dependent on your perception.

Well, I tried to look up some objective facts and scientific evidence to prove that those books were overrated, but my internet connection was down...

One should put things in context. One can say that obviously a gun is better than a knife. To kill someone perhaps, but not when it comes to making dinner.

Good point. As paperweights, most of the books I named are probably underrated.

If you perceive certain series to have "received such a drubbing in public fora" then why would you say they are "overrated"?

Perhaps they are overrated by a different set of people than are on this forum...?

If you have nothing to add to what others say you're not offering much insight.

I'm sure someone has said that before.

I don't even see you taking much of a stand against the current trends and fashions on this site. Now if you were to say something like Narnia is better than LotR, the Sword of Truth is better than aSoIaF, or Revelation Space is better than Hyperion, that might be intriguing. But your list of overrated books is a yawn. They do not really buck the trend or offer a controversial take.

Fair enough. But come on, give me a little more credit. There's few books more beloved - on this forum and elsewhere - as Ender's Game. Perdido Street Station, Revelation Space, and the Culture books are favorites around here. His Dark Materials and Fahrenheit 451 don't get discussed much on boards like this, but I've never seen anyone bash them. Sure, Jordan and Goodkind are easy targets, but to leave them off my list would just feel wrong somehow.

And I may be a grump, but I'm not a pointless contrarian...I happen to really like LotR, Hyperion, and ASOIAF, so why should I bash them just to take an iconoclastic position?

If you like, you can make a list of sffworld board favorites that haven't been discussed, and I can read them and tell you if I think they're overrated.

 

[nquixote]

Oh, hey, I forgot to put the Endymion books on my list. They were awful, especially because they retconned so many of the cool concepts from the Hyperion books.

 

[KatG]

Every time somebody does one of these "overrated" things, we end up in one of these discussions where one group explains what the word overrated means and the other claims it doesn't mean that.

Overrated means other people rate a work higher (over) than you believe they should, whether on grounds of a lot of people liking it and giving it high sales or proclaiming it a powerful literary work of acclaim. It is a criticism of their view of the work, not just the work. You are stating that you don't think much of other people's opinions of the work. And it is an individual critique because there is no such thing as general social consensus about any work of fiction that somehow exists independently of people's opinions. The only way a book is rated is if someone rates it and for every book acclaimed in one way or another, there is an equally large contingent who detests it. It is individual choice. If you want to say that you are not attacking individual reasons for liking a work, you're still attacking that they have chosen to rate the work highly in some way.

This is different from saying "I don't like this book" because I don't like is an expression of your assessment and judgment of a work of fiction, but "you shouldn't like" -- which is what overrated means -- means you are expressing the opinion that the other person, for whatever reason, is mistaken and he should not be making that opinion and rating the work that highly.

You could have easily started a thread "Books I Don't Like." In fact, we had a very good one of those a while back about books that are liked by a lot of people but that individuals just didn't enjoy, didn't get, couldn't relate. The difference in that conversation is that it was presented as opinions about works, not opinions about other people's opinions. That two different people had different views of a work was accepted as interesting contrast, not something to be judged and fought over.

Such conversations are rare, and I think you sort of wanted to have one. But you are having too much fun trying to provoke folk over the word overrated, which says that their judgment is lousy if they don't agree with you. You can say that's not what it means all you like, but it is what it means and it is how many others are going to take it. And you also seemed to have started a conversation asking for others' opinions and then saying that you really don't care to hear about the reasons that form their opinions, even though you asked them to look at your reasons and express their opinions about them.

Bluntly, what you are grumping about is not that a book is bad, which is a complaint toward the writer, but that other people think it is good, for whatever reason they do, which is a complaint about readers. You are unhappy with them, that they rated the book highly, elevating its status to some others. You are complaining about this, not the book. You are inviting others to do the same, which they do all the time anyway. There was really no need to have a special thread for it.

But hey, it's allowed. Just keep it respectful and no flame wars. Which I would suggest avoiding by dropping the argument that overrated doesn't mean overrated, but rather some vague social abstraction that no one should take personally. If you're going to complain, at least stand by your complaints. Or use a different choice of words. And so endeth my grump.

 

[nquixote]

But you are having too much fun trying to provoke folk over the word overrated

Guilty as charged...

And you also seemed to have started a conversation asking for others' opinions and then saying that you really don't care to hear about the reasons that form their opinions

??? When did I say I really don't care to hear about the reasons people form their opinions? Of course I do! I'm just acknowledging that there's a lot of those reasons out there, and I'm not going to try to "rebut" each and every one of them.

Bluntly, what you are grumping about is not that a book is bad, which is a complaint toward the writer, but that other people think it is good, for whatever reason they do, which is a complaint about readers. You are unhappy with them, that they rated the book highly, elevating its status to some others. You are complaining about this, not the book. You are inviting others to do the same, which they do all the time anyway.

Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Saying a book is overrated is complaining about fans, not authors - which is to say, it's complaining that one's minority opinion doesn't happen to be a majority opinion.

Which is pointless if you expect to change anyone's minds. But not pointless if you think stating your opinions in a strident manner - and watching others do the same - is fun.

 

[Bond]

Fair enough. But come on, give me a little more credit. There's few books more beloved - on this forum and elsewhere - as Ender's Game. Perdido Street Station, Revelation Space, and the Culture books are favorites around here. His Dark Materials and Fahrenheit 451 don't get discussed much on boards like this, but I've never seen anyone bash them. Sure, Jordan and Goodkind are easy targets, but to leave them off my list would just feel wrong somehow.

And I may be a grump, but I'm not a pointless contrarian...I happen to really like LotR, Hyperion, and ASOIAF, so why should I bash them just to take an iconoclastic position?

If you like, you can make a list of sffworld board favorites that haven't been discussed, and I can read them and tell you if I think they're overrated.

[...]

Which is pointless if you expect to change anyone's minds. But not pointless if you think stating your opinions in a strident manner - and watching others do the same - is fun.

There are a few threads out there which you apparently haven't seen that seem to contain what you are after. Look them up.

 

[owlcroft]

For what little it's worth . . . .

[F]or every book acclaimed in one way or another, there is an equally large contingent who detests it.

Equally? For every? I think not.

 

[KatG]

Which is pointless if you expect to change anyone's minds. But not pointless if you think stating your opinions in a strident manner - and watching others do the same - is fun.

Yes, well, that's the philosophy of trolling, isn't it? And trolling isn't allowed in these forums. So keep the stridency down to respectful levels, please, and say what you mean, not just what you think will provoke.

Equally? For every? I think not.

Equal thirds. The reading audience for any book breaks down into one third loves, one third hates and one third are fairly indifferent either way about it. Just my viewpoint and experience.

 

[nquixote]

Yes, well, that's the philosophy of trolling, isn't it? And trolling isn't allowed in these forums. So keep the stridency down to respectful levels, please, and say what you mean, not just what you think will provoke.

Grump yes, troll no. I never state opinions that I don't have in order to provoke people, or make ad-hominem attacks, or (as far as I can tell) use vulgar or offensive language. So unless simply using the term "overrated" is an act of trolling (because it states a criticism of fans and not of authors), I'm no troll...

I do live in the forest and eat hobbits, though.

 

[Randy M.]

Bluntly, what you are grumping about is not that a book is bad, which is a complaint toward the writer, but that other people think it is good, for whatever reason they do, which is a complaint about readers. You are unhappy with them, that they rated the book highly, elevating its status to some others. You are complaining about this, not the book. You are inviting others to do the same, which they do all the time anyway. There was really no need to have a special thread for it.

The Issues at Hand & More Issues at Hand by William Atheling (a.k.a. James Blish), and In Search of Wonder by Damon Knight were written at least in part to tell the general s.f. readership they had cruddy taste in books, and did so by looking at the books then published and widely-read and pointing out their flaws. Blish and Knight hoped they could help raise the general level of writing in the genre not only by criticizing but by encouraging reading outside the genre, and they did have some success in that direction.

No one has to agree with all criticism, either, but their criticism was detailed and gave specific reasons why they thought a book was bad or an author overrated, then it was up to the fans to decide and to offer valid argument when they did not agree. And that's where you find the value of criticism, either as a springboard for your own thoughts, or as a sounding-board.

Anyway, sometimes the argument can clarify to someone what he or she thinks, sometimes it sways an opinion, and sometimes it's just enjoyable in and of itself, but if you're going to knock something, really, you need to offer substantive reasons.


Randy M.

 

[Dyloot]

Grump yes, troll no. I never state opinions that I don't have in order to provoke people, or make ad-hominem attacks, or (as far as I can tell) use vulgar or offensive language. So unless simply using the term "overrated" is an act of trolling (because it states a criticism of fans and not of authors), I'm no troll...

I do live in the forest and eat hobbits, though.

Troll, yes. Sadly, you don't dictate how you are perceived. Clever banter and playing with semantics might entertain you but to this reader, and apparently to others here, you just come across as a troll looking to provoke folks by attacking novels and series with the dreaded "overrated label."

 

[txshusker]

it seems the thread has gone a little off track.
In my eye, these are books I was looking forward to read, and they didn't live up to expectations.

The Simarillion by Tolkein... I know it's more of a notebook, but I couldn't get through it.
The Deeds of Paksanarrion... like Heather Myst said. (I just finished it, so it was on my mind).
Speaker of the Dead - Card - I loved Ender's Game, but the follow ups were... eh ... for me.

Anything Shannara after the Sword.. I liked the Sword.. it might be formulaic, maybe a little juvenile but it's an easy, enjoyable read. At the time it was written, there wasn't a lot to compare it, too, either. And in many works, I think you have to take that into account.

Eragon and The Eldest - I know he was a teenager when he wrote them... I know they're YA... but they left me wanting.
Prisoner of Azkaban
Books 6-8 of TWoT by Jordan - I just started losing interest and it didn't keep me going.

Plenty of others, probably.

 

[molybdenum]

Hold on here.

Before we start unmercifully bashing nquixote for calling books overrated, let's not forget his intention in starting this thread. It was never intended to be a provocative thread, it seemed to be more of a thread to discuss books that you don't think as highly of as everyone else.

I think that KatG's definition of overrated is a little harder than that intended by nquixote, and this thread was never intended to be insulting to people who like those books, simply a discussion starting point.

Nquixote's not helping matters by his "clever" responses rather than retracting his overrated claim, but I don't believe he/she's a troll. (Not on this thread anyways, other threads I think nquixote's gone a bit too far...)

 

[Dyloot]

Hold on here.

Before we start unmercifully bashing nquixote for calling books overrated, let's not forget his intention in starting this thread. It was never intended to be a provocative thread, it seemed to be more of a thread to discuss books that you don't think as highly of as everyone else.

I think that KatG's definition of overrated is a little harder than that intended by nquixote, and this thread was never intended to be insulting to people who like those books, simply a discussion starting point.

Nquixote's not helping matters by his "clever" responses rather than retracting his overrated claim, but I don't believe he/she's a troll. (Not on this thread anyways, other threads I think nquixote's gone a bit too far...)

I'm not bashing the guy for calling books overrated. Many posters here are very outspoken on what books they like and do not like. I think he comes off a troll when he, apparently, provokes/baits other posters by attacking novels/series and then responding to those posters with clever, point-by-point rebuttals.

My guess, after reading his replies in this thread, is that he's entertaining himself at the expense of other posters, which is a long-standing internet troll tradition.

 

[KatG]

If I thought nquixote was actually trolling, he'd have gotten a warning. Instead he got:

1) an argument that claiming the use of the word overrated as not a value judgment of other people's views is incorrect, given that its meaning is "to rate too highly"; and that

2) if you are critiquing other people's judgment of fiction, don't act surprised if they don't take it very kindly and don't think much of your opinion of their opinions; and

2) a friendly caution that there's a fine line between strident/passionate critiquing and personal name-calling/trolling, and just be careful not to cross it. Which goes for everybody in the thread.

As for me personally, aside from the moderating stuff, nquixote trying to be a grump is just adorable.

 

[nquixote]

Nquixote's not helping matters by his "clever" responses...other threads I think nquixote's gone a bit too far...

OUCH.

 

[nquixote]

As for me personally, aside from the moderating stuff, nquixote trying to be a grump is just adorable.

Oh, KatG, I can say without any trace of sarcasm that I'm blushing furiously right now...

 

[Evil Agent]

I don't think there's anything wrong with this thread. Not in the slightest.