• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Are you turned off by authors who put out a book a year?

S

SNAPPY

New Member
Or who just have written lots of books? I'll admit, when i find a new author sometimes I'm wary when I see they have written so many novels and assume they are some kind of hack (Grisham, King, etc). I assume they are going for quantity over quality. And honestly, I can't think of an exception of an author with over ten books who didn't have some clunkers.

Is this fair, or are there plenty of authors who write alot of books and are consistently good?
 
I've yet to read a bad book by Joyce Carol Oates - then again, I've only read about half a dozen of hers, and she puts out something like three 600-pagers a year.
 
Being a King fan, I'm biased:)

I think you need to consider how long they have been writing and what sort of books they write. Romance writers are expected to churn out more than a book a year (I don't know if they're any good, I've never read any). A writer may go through several stages in their career (e.g. compare some of King's older works to those written in the last 5 - 10 years) and you may miss some gems by dismissing the lot.

I wouldn't purposely not read someone just because they write a lot. Perhaps they are gifted with an unusually active imagination, or a super-monkey who types out all their stuff!
 
What about writers who just put their name to any old shit, i.e. James Patterson? I remember there was a post here about how he was releasing eight books per year, the majority of which he hadn't actually written.
 
Yes, I worked that out - he published eight different books in his own or joint names between July 2005 and July 2006.

I do share SNAPPY's instinctive distrust of the churners. But ultimately the proof has to be in the reading. Updike and Roth and prolific but widely acclaimed too.
 
I think it depends on the books being released. If the author doesn't show any signs of creative exhaustion or a decrease in writing quality, then I have no problem with that writer releasing one book per year.
 
Sometimes an author just happens to nick onto a formula that works for them, and the readers. Its like putting on a comfortable pair of old slippers and relaxing and escaping into a familiar world, that holds no bad or uncomfortable surprises. Comfort reading. Like comfort food (chocolate :rolleyes: ).
 
pontalba said:
Sometimes an author just happens to nick onto a formula that works for them, and the readers. Its like putting on a comfortable pair of old slippers and relaxing and escaping into a familiar world
Click to expand...

That sums up how I feel about Terry Pratchett. Yes, I know a lot of people here don't like his work, but I do. It's great to revisit the old locations and characters, but Pratchett still manages to come up with fresh ideas. Look at how Vetinari, who has always been a fairly minor character, is brought much more to the fore in Going Postal. I look forward to Pratchett's yearly novel!
 
Pratchett, of course, has actually slowed down in recent years - he used to put out a new novel every May and every November. He said this came of his belief, at the time, that any time spend not writing was time wasted. Presumably he has relaxed a bit now.

Oddly I think in his case it was his prolificness (is that a word?) which ended up turning me off him. I read all his books, even buying them in hardback, up to Lords & Ladies in 1992 (the 12th Discworld novel, or thereabouts?) and realised that they were all getting a bit samey: the humour, the plot-drivers, the characters, the footnotes, the reliance on dodgy ill-explained magicky stuff to get out of tight plot holes... I stopped reading him then and didn't try him again until Thief of Time a few years ago, wanting to see if I was missing anything. It took me back in a flash and I felt like nothing had changed in the intervening decade.

So for me Pratchett's consistency (and formulaic qualities?) which can be a source of pleasure for some, ended up putting me off him.
 
Shade said:
So for me Pratchett's consistency (and formulaic qualities?) which can be a source of pleasure for some, ended up putting me off him.
Click to expand...

Shade, I would really recommend Going Postal. It had a slightly different feel to it somehow (possibly because the main character was a new one) and some excellent satire on the postal service. It's now become my favourite Pratchett novel.
 
Thanks for the recommendation, Halo. The one I have occasionally considered getting is The Truth, as I believe it's based around a newspaper. I thought media satire might be quite a rich vein for Pratchett to tap.

I've often thought that Springfield should have its own newspaper too; just think what fun the writers of The Simpsons could have with taking the piss out of the tabloid press...
 
"The Truth" is pretty damn good; I think it's the first Pratchett I read, and it was good enough to get me to read about 8 or 10 more before I burned out; they DO tend to get a bit samey. But the running gag of villains in a PG-13 story using the word "-ing" was priceless, even if it sounds stupid at first.

I've often thought that Springfield should have its own newspaper too; just think what fun the writers of The Simpsons could have with taking the piss out of the tabloid press...
Click to expand...
They're busy taking the piss out of Fox Television most of the time. I believe Fox News once tried to sue them before someone pointed out that "Simpsons" IS on Fox...
 
Heck, if you're talented enough to release more than one good book a year I dont see why you shouldn't. Though it is definately a turn off when authors go ahead and publish any old crap they've written just because they know it'll sell.
 
If the books are still good reading then it doesn't matter to me if authors release one a year.

I really haven't read any of Stephen King's novels for a few years since I got distracted by other authors. He's one of the few writers whom I have read more than one or two books from though.
 
It all depends on the author for me. Although, yes, I've noticed that authors churning out books like nothing aren't really that great and tend to get boring.

I wouldn't say 10 is a proper number though. Perfect examples though, are King and Grisham... while their early works were alright, they got quite repetitive and became boring.
 
Fantasy Moon said:
If the books are still good reading then it doesn't matter to me if authors release one a year.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. Some authors can put out two books a year and still have those books bet great, but it eventually leads to their writing dwindling until the flame finally goes out and they just write to get a paycheck.
 
Not Every One Is A Winner, That's True

Three books I read recently are "S Is For Silence," by Sue Grafton; "Gone," by Jonathan Kellerman; and "The Lincoln Lawyer," by Michael Connolly. They were all excellent, and I was so glad. Don't you just hate it when the publishers hype a book by a well-known author and it turns out to be weird? I still haven't gotten over Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island," and he is usually one of my best favorites. My new guilty pleasures are Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series featuring barmaid/telepath Sookie Stackhouse. I loved every one of them (there are five novels and a couple short stories) and now I hear that Alan Ball (of HBO's "Six Feet Under" fame) has signed to develop a new series of the Southern Vampire stories for HBO. Can't wait!
 
It usually doesn't bother me. It does kind of annoy me that if I really like the author, I feel like I have to run around and try to read everything they've written.
 
SNAPPY said:
Or who just have written lots of books? I'll admit, when i find a new author sometimes I'm wary when I see they have written so many novels and assume they are some kind of hack (Grisham, King, etc). I assume they are going for quantity over quality. And honestly, I can't think of an exception of an author with over ten books who didn't have some clunkers.

Is this fair, or are there plenty of authors who write alot of books and are consistently good?
Click to expand...

I know what you are talking about.
But I dont think having 10 or more books out always mean that its bad. Just think of authors like Dostojevsky or Paul Auster.
Søren Kierkegaard is a very good example of someone having A LOT on their mind!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top