Authors who should have quite while ahead

[Draken]

Have any of you any thoughts on authors who started off well but who you wish had stopped writing sooner than they did?

For me three that spring to mind are:

Isaac Asimov - the cleverness of his early robot stories and the unique vision of the original Foundation trilogy eventually spoiled by increasingly pedantic efforts to weld them all together.

Frank Herbert - ok Dune was initially meant as a trilogy, but the latter two books in it paled in comparison to the brilliant first book. And the ones that followed went downhill fast.

Robert Heinlein - the energy of his "future history" stories, the imagination of "Stranger in a Strange Land" - if you like these, don't read his last few books.

Anyone agree/disagree, or have some nominations of their own?

[BeardofPants]

Agree with Heinlein. Not with Herbert though. I love all of the Dune series.

Arthur C. Clarke should have stopped with the first space odyssey book. Admittedly I only made it half way through the second one...

Edit:

Forgot about Pratchett's diskworld novels, and Antony's Xanth series. Degenerated to absolute rubbish.

[Willow Oran]

Forgot about Pratchett's diskworld novels,

I love the entire Discworld series. C.S. Lewis flopped on his last two Narnia books though. They weren't nearly as delightful as his earlier ones.

[Menelvagor]

I see this shall become a matter of some debate.

I don't agree with Narnia going downhill, they all see of about equal worth to me. Dune I'm kind of half-and-half about; the last few books weren't bad, but they definately weren't as good as the original.

I'm tempted to add Brian Jacques; as much as I love Redwall the plots (as well as the character names, has anyone else noticed that?) seem to be drifting into a formula. It's not half so creative or intrigueing in the later books.

[sun-star]

I don't agree about Narnia, but C.S. Lewis should have stopped his space novels after Perelandra.

[Earniel]

I agree with Willow. The last two Narnia- books were a disappointment.

But the disc-world novels are still good. The jokes and random sillyness have dimished, and the puns and cultural references (that I seldom get)have increased. But I still like his last books.

[GandalfTheWhite]

i disagree with the chronicles of narnia as well, i thought the silver chair was a great book, i mean it had puddleglum, and the last battle being my least favorite of the series i still thought to be a good book

[crickhollow]

Originally posted by sun-star
I don't agree about Narnia, but C.S. Lewis should have stopped his space novels after Perelandra.
Perelandra was definately his best fictional work (Til We Have Faces runs a really close second), but That Hideous Strength is most definately worth a read. It's really different than the first two, but still really great

[osszie]

I lost a bit of faith in T. Pratchett........but The Thief of Time has restored me somewhat:)

As for the Narinia chronicles.........reading them now as an adult (I re-read them last year).........the christian symbolism shines thru a lot more than the plot and characterisation.........

but that is a debate for another time;)

[Khadrane]

I say Robert Jordan. The first few Wheel of Time books were good, but he should have stopped at 3,4,5, in my opinion. And I agree with Menelvagor. I still really like Brian Jacques, but the first few books were alot better than some of the later ones.

[IronParrot]

I heartily agree about Robert Jordan. He had a good concept, played with it, and then dragged it.

He's still dragging.

I stopped after #7 to take a break, and I simply have too many other books to catch up on in the meantime to go back to Wheel of Time anytime soon.

As for Lewis... I actually rather enjoyed The Last Battle, especially the ending. In fact, I find that The Horse and His Boy was by far the weakest of the entire series. Of course, Narnia was never really one of my favourites... the allegory was far too blunt and up front, sometimes at the expense of everything else.

[BeardofPants]

I never got past number one in the wheel of time series, it was so bad. :rolleyes:

[osszie]

Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman (and all the other authors of those terrible Dragonlance books). They wrote IMO the literary equivalent of that D&D caroon:(


Numerous Star Trek novels.

Harry Harrison.........loved the early Stainless Steel Rat novels......but the more recent ones seem stale and have done little to add to the characters.

[johnnyrod]

Know what you mean about Pratchett, after the first half-dozen you could start writing them yourself. I haven't read any recent ones, I guess from comments above he's coming back down to earth.

Iain Banks: his early books were brilliant; complicated, involving, but most of all believable. Even the sci-fi ones like Consider Phlebas were "good" sci-fi, i.e. decent book with a sci-fi background, rather than being overly concerned with being geeky (like Star Trek). But alas, both his sci-fi and contemporary books have gone overboard on scale at the expense of real tension.

What about William Gibson? He's my favourite writer of all time, but did All Tomorrows' Parties mark anything other than a bit of a letdown end of a trilogy rather like Mona Lisa Overdrive? I hope not, I'd like to think there's life in the old dog yet.

[Luthien Tinuviel]

Originally posted by Willow Oran
I love the entire Discworld series. C.S. Lewis flopped on his last two Narnia books though. They weren't nearly as delightful as his earlier ones.
Major disagreement coming from this side of the thread... They are all equally wonderful. The last battle (the last book) is one of my absolute favorites of the seven...

[Draken]

As I've said on another thread, Iain (M) Banks is losing it for me. His last two Culture novels were a bit of a let down. Song of Stone was downright poor. Yet still I await his next work, hopefully...

I was quite young when I read the Narnia books, so memory plays tricks - but for me the enjoyment factor dipped in the middle and was if anything saved by The Last Battle - which if nothing else lived up to its title. But I pretty soon saw them as 2nd division fantasy compared to Tolkien. Can't say I'm enthused enough to revisit them to see if the allegory is as unsubtle as everyone says.