Mediocre fast food books/book series you like

[Eschaton]

karakand inspired this thread talking about his WH40k stanning.

Anyway, list shit we love that is

I love the Deathstalker series. Corny, but endlessly readable space opera. Awesome worldbuilding, but really goofy dialogue and plot in general. Swords, cyborgs, superhumans, hackers, corporations, gladiators, space wizards, thieves, weird fucking aliens, it's enjoyable. Would make an awesome game or movie series. It has fucking everything.

Hilarious cover art:

[StealthFan]

I read some James Patterson in high-school. I liked Kiss the Girls but Pop Goes the Weasel was when I had enough of that nicca. There was one character whos only characteristic was being blonde and biting her lip, and you're supposed to feel bad when she dies and Alex Cross seeks vengeance. Vengeance against her murderer, some dipshit that gets gratification from making his families food too spicy (SRS).

[Great Rumbler]

David Eddings' Belgariad/Malloreon series. They're really simple and straightforward, but they're handled in a way that makes them a quick, fun read regardless. I probably read through all ten books at least a half dozen times during elementary and high school.

[StealthFan]

My bad that bitch also had blue eyes

I'd def put Koontz, Rice and Clancy above Patterson and Brown tho. They may write shit, but they've also written some good books.

Brown and Patterson?

[Mupepe]

The Anne rice vampire books were the shit when I was younger.

Stephen king dark tower series is GOAT tier

[toku]

Up to around 2008 I had read almost every DnD and Drizzt books that R.A. Salvatore had written. Legacy of the Drow, Hunter's Blade's Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy. Epics about an emo ass dark elf who loves redheads.

 

[benjipwns]

Star Trek: New Frontier

Actually, most Star Trek novels.

I was reading the "relaunch" series for a while and then they somehow outpaced me...

[toku]

Recently I read the first two books in the The First Law trilogy. I started the third but never finished it:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Law

I liked them though. A bit like Salvatore's DnD books but with a harder edge.

[Mupepe]

Up to around 2008 I had read almost every DnD and Drizzt books that R.A. Salvatore had written. Legacy of the Drow, Hunter's Blade's Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy. Epics about an emo ass dark elf who loves redheads.

 

the drizzt books are entertaining as fuck bro. I used to lie when people would ask what they were about though. No way was I telling them

[Himu]

I like anime.

[toku]

I never read them but you're like the third person I know who has said something along those lines. My high school chemistry teacher also tried to get me to read the Wheel of Time series? Something like that. It sounded interesting but I never got around to it.

[nachobro]

Drizzt and Terry Goodkind books were my shit back in high school...and into my first couple years of college. 

[jakefromstatefarm]

Also another series that is pretty fucking awesome full stop up to a certain point. It was supposed to be the chosen one, the successor to Lord of the Rings, the GOAT. Instead it bungled everything after the 5th book and became shit. But you could theoretically also read that up till the 3rd or 4th book and eat good.

That one still gets me deep in my chest. Like that girl you used to sit next to in AP English and was fine as hell but in college she did a lot of blow and chicken fingers and she hasn't been the same since. RIP in peace.

The Lost of epic modern fantasy prose.

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Not that I would know anything about either of those

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Read through book four of these chits in middle school:

wangsty, super derivative, remember having fun w/ them

[toku]

All of the girls in my AP English class went on to either be crazy Ron Paul type supporters or preppy semi-professional do nothings with rich boyfriends or husbands.

[jakefromstatefarm]

I didnt watch Lost because it looked dumb af but i'd say thats a pretty accurate comparison. Wheel of Time was supposed to be that nicca. Instead he bungled it, and then died before he could bring it back. Wheel of Time is like the Lupe Fiasco of books.

I was gonna say Jay Elec, but Wheel of Time actually delivered initially.

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Also, anyone remember the Redwall series? I jumped into it with the fifth book and remember going . Anthropomorphism .

[StealthFan]

Reading fantasy tomes I never could. I tried to read Malazan and ASOFAI but couldn't. I could recognize that they were both interesting tho.

It's crazy because I love fantasy films like Conan and shit and also like fantasy comics but actual books? Nah.

[Human Snorenado]

It's kind of embarrassing brehs, but I like... Game of Thrones.

[Momo]

Not that they are mediocre, but I like Anne Rice novels. Yes, I realize this is problematic

[Human Snorenado]

Seriously tho, my fantasy introduction was... the OG Dragonlance books. I still remember all the feels I caught when Flint the dwarf died. So bad.

I then "progressed" to the Drizzt books and all manner of Forgotten Realms fuckery.

[nudemacusers]

gonna have to throw in the ravenloft books. fun but kinda dumb and repetitive.

Not that they are mediocre, but I like Anne Rice novels. Yes, I realize this is problematic

I love the vampire chronicles nohomo

[jakefromstatefarm]

not embarassing, GOT is the best (standalone) book in the series

immediately after I finished ASOIAF I went into Gardens of the Moon. big-ass culture/prose/narrative shock, made it about 200 pages deep, pretty ashamed that I both hate myself enough to initiate and yet don't have the stones to carry through my commitment

tangential, but the only books I could read again and again and again w/o fatigue were those Calvin and Hobbes collections. I remember finding the first book in a corner of a closet, cover beaten up, spine frayed, and immediately falling in love with it. Every vacation I'd demand/receive a new C&H book to keep me occupied; trips to different states were characterized by different books, hotel rooms littered with legos and comic strips. Those and old fairy tale anthologies were to an adolescent jake. to Mr. and Mrs. Statefarm for indulging.

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and @ you guys sneaking in "Lives of the Saints" and The Rhyme Bible into the legendarium, keep fighting the good fight

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[larrydavid]

yes, in fifth grade it was all redwall, tolkien (including ALL the extra shit like unfinished tales), dragonlance, narnia, wrinkle in time. basically by the time i was older i was all fantasy'd out.

but back in the day if it was fantasy and a trilogy, it was getting read no matter what.

[nudemacusers]

vampire fiction is for girls and homos tbf

but when lestat and louis do their immortal homoerotic but not really* dance across the centuries

*but really

[Momo]

Anne Rice basically writes erotic homo vampire fiction, I can tell why you like it

[nudemacusers]

hey man you live for 1000 years and eventually you just suck a dusty vampire dick to pass the time

[Momo]

It's like that forum law, if a thread stays open too long, eventually it will turn into a discussion about dicks. The average threshold on The Bore is something like 2 posts though so it's not like I need to tell you guys

[jakefromstatefarm]

So is Malazan good, then? I've been pitched these over and over again.

I've heard that the first book is a major slog, but once you get into the rhythm of the narrative and the characters come into focus shit turns up to tier.

Also at the supplantation of fekkitry in this thread. I wanna talk about anthropomorphism, large phallic blades of steel, the fair folk, and quixotic expectations of the male form and here you all are tacitly supporting the homosexual agenda.

[StealthFan]

vampire fiction is for girls and homos tbf

I Am Legend and Salems Lot is not homo.

[Momo]

I really, really like Jules Verne books, I've read a metric ton of them. I've been thinking of maybe getting into the Steven King Dark Tower stuff, but it seems like a 100 book commitment

[StealthFan]

I heard The Passage is piff too. I have it on audiobook but audiobooks are kinda I can't listen to audiobooks while I do other shit. My mind needs to create a visual.

[Human Snorenado]

So is Malazan good, then? I've been pitched these over and over again.

Here's the thing about the Malazan books- the world is dense and there's so much shit going on even seasoned genre veterans will have trouble getting into it and keeping up with everything.

It doesn't matter, though. That fucker writes the best battles of any fantasy author I've read, and I've read pretty much all of them.

Coltaine's march in the 2nd book

 

Pretty much any of Karsa Orlong's fights, but especially his fight against Rhulad the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths... "I will kill you... once."

 

And then there's Quick Ben, who is, and I don't say this lightly at all brehs, the most bad ass wizard in all of fantasy history.

[Momo]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[jakefromstatefarm]

Just went ahead and copped them shits from Avax, all ten of em

BTW jake the neckbeard confessions in this thread only make me feel closer to you as a human being no homo. I've never felt a greater kinship with a man whose face i've never seen before so many shared interests

cac brothers from another mother

#realtalk multiple exchanges in plug have resulted in me thinking I was conversing with myself

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no homo

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no homophobia

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I am truly the homosexually begotten lovechild of Esch's vitriolic cynicism and Karakand's cumbersome, self-effacing doubt

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adjusted for optimal melanin levels

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[benjipwns]

I can never remember if Piers Anthony whole thing with Death and Time and so on is considered garbage or brilliant.

I liked most of it. Except for the incest.

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Okay, especially the incest. 

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Death book was still the best one though really.

[StealthFan]

Robert E Howard and Lovecraft () belong in this thread.

[Momo]

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no homo

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no homophobia

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I'm going to have to report you for this, punishment is being the bottom in a gay pile

[nudemacusers]

i kinda get what you're saying but lovecraft redeems himself by finding clever ways to describe minorities.

[Human Snorenado]

The last three books of the Dark Tower series are absolute shit. Please don't try to defend them.

[benjipwns]

I read all the Zahn related stuff, sequels were kinda odd, and that one series where the Emperor comes back as a clone and Luke turns evil and then people fight for like five hundred pages and the status quo is restored at the end. And like nobody cares that like a hundred planets have been vaporized or something.

The oddest thing in the EU to me always was why nobody wondered how the Empire kept coming back as these "hidden offshoots" and suddenly equally powerful. It's like somebody had to notice a bunch of Star Destroyers just sitting around somewhere for the 15 years before they seized half the galaxy randomly one afternoon.

[Momo]

The last three books of the Dark Tower series are absolute shit. Please don't try to defend them.

Well I guess I'll give this a miss then

[Kara]

I finished a 40K book on tape on my drive home tonight.

My runner up: Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series.

Fun fact - the only time in my life I can ever remember being offended by a book was one of these. In one of them they talk about El Pollo Loco and then translate its name in an em dash tangent. I was so offended I had to set the book down and pace for 5 minutes before returning to the reading equivalent of hammering a nail through my dick.

[StealthFan]

 Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series.

taco

[Eric P]

it's not bad reading by any means, but the only series of which i buy every book is Joe R Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series.  Amazing and fun fiction set in East Texas.  Violent, funny, and full of men doing what they gotta do.  Bore approved as one of the main characters is gay.

First one isn't that great, but from book two on they pretty much kick ass.

[toku]

Wolves of the Calla is okay. It starts off slow but I was with it by the end. Song of Susannah sucks until the last few chapters. The Dark Tower is like a crazy acid trip but in a bad way.

[Eel O'Brian]

When I was younger I tried getting into several series, but always gave up because it would be too hard to get all the books. You guys live in a Golden Age for that kind of reading. My crap book guilty pleasures were always movie novelizations.

[Dickie Dee]

I remember loving the shit out of the Robotech books when I was younger.

[Great Rumbler]

Another series I used to really love but probably wouldn't bother with today is Terry Brook's Shannara series. Man, they were so generic and by-the-book [], but I plowed through quite a few of them during my time regardless. Of course, that was during a period where I read basically any fantasy book I could get my hands on, so whatever. On the other hand, the Jerle Shannara arc that he did a little over 10 years ago was actually pretty good in its own right, because it was all about adventuring through unknown lands with a totally sweet airship.

[Dennis]

BattleTech books
Shadowrun books
WH40k books
Dragonlance books
Drizzt books

Why can't I hold all these nostalgia feels?  :'(

[Phoenix Dark]

Drizzt

[Phoenix Dark]

Does Katherine Paterson count?

The Great Gilly Hopkins
Jacob Have I Loved
Bridge to Terabithia
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom

having a mother who made me read to her, and thus helped spark my passion for literature

mining the Newberry Medal book list as a kid

[Momo]

At least it wasnt

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I dig mysteries, which means I on occasion read pulpy mysteries.  Lee Child's Jack Reacher series being my drug of choice for airport literature.  The quality of the books can vary from each installment, but I've yet to be bored and am sometimes rather impressed by the writing and plotting.

I've also been slowly getting into Donald Westlake (and his pseudonym Richard Stark), and I've been more consistently impressed by the Stark books so far.

[Momo]

Golden Compass
Narnia

[Steve Contra]

Golden Compass is great. 

[Phoenix Dark]

The Silver Chair is the best Narnia book by a mile.

[Dennis]

I remember the first Narnia book (The Magician's Nephew) being weird as fuck.

[Phoenix Dark]

Didn't really like the first book. Obviously the second is really good. The worst by a fucking MILE is the last one, The Last Battle. I don't dislike the religious imagery and metaphors - fantasy is full of them, whether they're intentional or not. But Susan getting thrown in the bushes of eternity because she wore makeup...nope, that was too much for me. SMH.

[Steve Contra]

I mean you could stan for Harry Potter

[Steve Contra]

I was mocking PD.

[Kara]

Loving Christian propaganda (narnia) and western atheist propaganda (compass) (Image removed from quote.)

Must be more abrahamic #dualities at play here I'm missing out on.

I have an Ayn Rand book in the Soviet Literature section of my library.