Dragaera

A question re: Begining Fantacy for Youth

Mon Nov 25 15:36:23 PST 2002

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 05:47:27PM -0500, "Peter H. Granzeau" <pgranzeau at cox.net> wrote:
> At 11:54 11/25/2002 -0600, Matthew Hunter wrote:
> >On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 10:16:15AM -0500, "Peter H. Granzeau" 
> ><pgranzeau at cox.net> wrote:
> >> How about Jane Yolen's two "Jenna" books, _Sister Light, Sister Dark_ and
> >> _White Jenna_?  Yolen also edited a series of YA novels, which might turn
> >> up some good books for kids, as well as authored many more herself.
> >Gods, no.  That is the ONLY book I have literally torn up and
> >thrown against the wall.
> A very atypical response.  You obviously don't like Jane Yolen.  You 
> shouldn't convert your personal likes and dislikes into a general 
> recommendation, is what I think.

I was *disgusted* with Jane Yolen.  I got less than 3 
chapters in and already, by that point, the cliches had 
piled up higher than I could stand.  The only other books that 
came close to that reaction were Eddings (after 12 books) and 
the Wizard's First Rule horror.  Eddings was at least enjoyable 
to read, until he realized he was writing the same book over and 
over.  WFR I went into knowing it would be bad, and I still 
barely lasted 10 chapters.  Neither of the latter got thrown 
against the wall.  SLSD stands out as uniquely bad in my 
experience.

Since a recommendation thread is all about opinions, and we only 
have personal opinions, I don't see any problem expressing my 
dismay at this suggestion.  Particularly since I flatter myself 
by thinking that I can distinguish between "I don't like this 
book personally" and "this book sucks", and the book in question 
was firmly in the latter category.

-- 
Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org)
Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp
Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt