Series you were disappointed with...

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

You are not supposed to take the Discworld seriously...

I didn't say I was attempting to write a scholarly analysis and the content was just too silly. I said I don't like it because it is too silly. As in, things that are too silly are not enjoyable for me. Whatever you are supposed to do, that is something I do not like doing. 

[Topomouse he/him]

It was a cop out. A very well written and occasionally amusing copout, but a copout. Snicker had no idea how to resolve the mysteries he'd written, so he just...didn't.

Well, he spent 12 books saying that the story wouldn't have an happy ending, and the reader should go read something else. The last book wasn't very good, but if he actually wrote an happy ending where everything got resolved I would have been more disappointed. At least he has been coherent.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Well, he spent 12 books saying that the story wouldn't have an happy ending, and the reader should go read something else. The last book wasn't very good, but if he actually wrote an happy ending where everything got resolved I would have been more disappointed. At least he has been coherent.

 

True, but he also spent most of those books leading us to believe the sugar bowl was important, implying that he would explain why by book 13—and then he didn't. Coherent, yes. Honest, not completely. And I'm all for turning the tropes of a genre on their heads, but in mystery novels, you kind of have to solve the main mystery by the end of the book/series. 

[Topomouse he/him]

It has been a while since I read the books, and i read them translated which is often a problem, but I don't think he ever implyed he would alctually solve any mystery. The books tell the story of the Baudelaire siblings, but they move in a big world where there are many more stories: if I remember correctly in the last book he expresses this many times, particularly when the "chief" of the island tells them that story about a ring.

It may have been that he wrote himself in a corner and tried to escape from it as well as he could, but being an optimist I think that he more or less had that ending in mind from the start, that he set out to write not a mystery novel as you percieved it, but something different more sperimental. The end result was not that good, I say so myself, but I think that maybe you went and read the series with wrong expectations and remained more disappointed then necessary.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Perhaps. But in every book I've read where there was some sort of mystery (which, come to think of it, was nearly every book I've ever read) the mystery was resolved, or partially resolved, by the end. If a question was brought up repeatedly and not answered right away, it was expected that it would be answered by the end of the book or series. Here's a few examples: 

 

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Why is everyone excited that the Pevensies are in Narnia? (Resolved.) Who is Aslan? (Resolved.) Why is the White Witch so nice to Edmund? (Resolved.) 

 

The Great Gatsby: Who is Gatsby and why is he so rich? (Resolved.) Why is he so obsessed with Daisy? (Resolved.) Why is he so chummy with Nick, whom he barely knows? (Resolved.) 

 

Oedipus: Why is there a famine? (Resolved.) What does Jocasta have to do with the famine? (Resolved.) Why is it important that Oedipus was adopted? (Resolved.) 

 

You're right: I did go into that series with the wrong expectations. But they were expectations created by years of reading and learning from stories where many of the important questions are answered by the end. If Snicket was going to overturn centuries of literature forming those expectations in his series, he probably should have been a little more careful about it. 

[Haradion Drogon]

I wasn't expecting a happy ending - but I was expecting "An Ending".

We just got... nothing.

 

No sugar Bowl. No Great Unknown.

Nothing.

 

It was so disatisfying - I think it was the first book I ever put down and said "What a waste of time."

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I wasn't expecting a happy ending either, but I was expecting an ending that followed the books' setup. That second-last scene with the Count and Kit—it was a good scene, but it didn't fit with the rest of the series. There was no setup, no foreshadowing, nothing at all to lead the reader to the same conclusion, yet that was what we got. 

 

I think that was the first series where I actually felt cheated by the ending. 

[Hood he/him]

To The OP:

 

I was deeply disappointed with Harry Potter series. Harry and Hermoine were so good together.

 

And to some part, WoT. Even Brandon objected to killing of one of the key characters.

 

And at last, The First Law Trilogy. I liked the second book. The third one was pretty bad for me.

[Voidus]

The Inheritance cycle is my standout most hated ending to a series, I also got annoyed with Robin Hobb's Farseer and it's ending.  A Series of Unfortunate Events, was definitely a let down but I wasn't all that invested in it so I guess it never annoyed me as much as it did some people.

[gjustice99 she/her]

The Percy Jackson and the Olympians was this for me. I started the series when I was 10 (all the books of the first series were out) and I absolutely loved them. The were my favorite series. When the Heroes of Olympus came out, I was very disappointed with the first one, the second third and fourth were better but the last one just didn't cut it for me. It may just be because I'm not the little kid I was when I began the series, but I don't think that's it. I think it's because it was the last book and a) it was full of plot holes and b ) had a bunch of loose ends that were not tied and a very dissatisfying ending about some characters. Don't get me wrong, I love certain parts of i but, for a final book about characters that made up the majority of my childhood, it wasn't enough for me, and I know I'm not the only one.

Edited December 14, 2014 by gjustice99

[Briar King he/him]

The Inheritance cycle is my standout most hated ending to a series, I also got annoyed with Robin Hobb's Farseer and it's ending. A Series of Unfortunate Events, was definitely a let down but I wasn't all that invested in it so I guess it never annoyed me as much as it did some people.

Are you referring to the 1st or 2nd trilogy with Hobb?

[Iarwainiel I she/her]

First, thanks to all previous posters for warning me off some of these series (with good explanations why) - you've saved me some time!

 

Here are my contributions:

 

Stephen Lawhead's Celtic Crusades series was a severe disappointment, especially after his initial Arthur trilogy and the Song of Albion Cycle were so great. Not sure what happened to him. I gave his newest series, Bright Empires, a chance, and I enjoyed the first 4 volumes; but the final book was again a real disappointment - it's like he didn't know what to do with characters/situations, so he just ended them abruptly or glossed over things. He was my favorite author in the 90s, but I think this is the end of the line for me.

 

Like others above, I thought Divergent didn't live up to the hype - like a poor cousin of the Hunger Games IMO.

 

And I am one of those people who did not care for most of WoT. The only reason I read any of the books was to be able to read Brandon's final 3. #6 was such grinding agony that, for #7-11, I opted for Leigh Butler's re-read at Tor.com + the WoT Encyclopaedia. To me, all the pages and pages of excessively florid description and all the naked people hitting each other with sticks for no discernable reason just got to be too much - take all that out, and each book would have been maybe 100-150 pages, or at least that's how it felt to me. I did enjoy #12-14, and was pretty satisfied with how things ended in AMoL.

 

Someone else mentioned Michael Grant's Gone series; that was another one I didn't like. The first book was OK, but by the middle of #2 it seemed like it had changed from a paranormal/modern fantasy story to pure horror - as if the author was thinking, "What can I put the characters through that will be even more horrifying than what they've faced so far?" I cheated and looked up the series synopsis on wikipedia, and quickly determined not to expend any more effort in that direction. Wish I could delete the 1st volume from my iBookshelf because I will never want to read it again.

 

I very much enjoyed A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge, but was badly disappointed by the sequel and could not finish it.

 

The first book in the Patricia Hutchins series by Jack McDevitt, The Engines of God, was the best in that series; IMO they got weaker as it went along. His Alex Benedict series is much stronger, and #1 A Talent for War is one of the best SF books I've ever read.

 

I tried **Ringworld, because it's supposed to be a classic (and because I got it at the library's thrift store for 25 cents). It was OK, but what I noticed most was how slow-moving it was. I think the reason is that novels and movies are just more action-filled now: my expectations have changed. I bet if I'd read it right after it was published, I'd have liked it better. [**edited Jan 1 2015]

 

The same goes for Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series. It just seemed too slow-moving and too predictable. But (as someone posted above for another series) I suspect that this is because I read it years after I'd read newer works that were patterned after it but written in a more contemporary style.

 

Finally, I have to add the classic Lensmen series, by E.E. "Doc" Smith. These were written 1948-54 and are considered very influential early SF works. While it's interesting to read these short novels for historical perspective ... well, if you look at the original Star Trek series from the 60s and the way it portrayed people, Lensmen is even more guilty of stereotyping and the bad kind of old-fashioned attitudes than ST-TOS was.The science is old too: In the first book, the author apparently didn't know how destructive atomic bombs were (!). I would not recommend this series except as a study in historical ways that American men viewed women and other people in general. Mostly, I think it would just make modern people angry, and why go out of your way for that?

 

Sorry this entry was so long - wish I'd found this thread sooner. :-)

Edited January 2, 2015 by old aggie

[metaldragon]

Malazan Book of the Fallen

I have 6 hours left in this audio book and the only reason im going to finish is to at least say i gave book 1 a 

shot. 

I simply do not care what happens to 90% of the cast...

1. book throws you in a ton of random viewpoints

2. 30% through the book you start to get a glimps of This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules is going on.

3. 50% through the book things are finally starting to makes sense.... 4. You barely stay with any group of viewpoint long enough to even care since as soon as you even think

your starting to care the view point changes again to some random people who do not care for.

If you like a M. bay movies where you dont need to think but you get nice explosions and can go "OOOooo

nice!"

To be fair the book are not simple and are complicated enough to demand attention to understand whats

going on. You get huge magic and introduce to serveral super powerful characters that do really cool things

but thats where the entertainment ends....there is nothing at least in the 1st book to make you CARE about why all these awesome things are happening.

If you like big plots and people with crazy powers with limitless potential with people over 100k years old you may like these stories.

If you want to actually connect to any characters or care about a plot after you spend 1/2 the book trying to even get a clue of than this book likely isn't for you.

 

[DanTheSeamonster he/him]

Hunger Games, hands down. Hunger Games was great, and Catching Fire was great too (well, maybe a little less great, but still) but oh God Mockingjay. Just.....ugh. I can't even express my hatred for that book without flipping some tables. Just.....why, Collins, why?!?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Here's one: Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series. 

 

His Percy Jackson books were never what you'd call great literature, and they weren't meant to be. They were fun, irreverent looks at Greek mythology through a modern American lens, with just enough characterization to make you care. I liked them. As a college and later a grad student, they were the perfect diversion from my stressful classes. 

 

A few years after the original series ended, he published The Lost Hero, the first in a spinoff series introducing a Roman version of Camp Half-Blood, and demigods who are the children of Greek gods in their Roman aspects (so instead of a son of Zeus, we're introduced to a son of Jupiter). Which struck me as sort of fanficcy. Were I younger, that's the sort of thing I would have written, posted on FF.net, and thought was the most brilliant thing in the world. My impression of the book wasn't helped by the fact that the central character had no personality to speak of, and the other two fit almost perfectly into stereotyped roles (Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown). 

 

I was willing to give him another chance as an author, so I read the next book, Son of Neptune. And I really enjoyed it. He brought back Percy, and paired him with two new characters, both of whom I liked quite a bit. The series' momentum carried me through the next one, Mark of Athena, which I consider the high point of the series. All the characters had a good chemistry, the Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown grew beyond their stereotypes, and the son of Jupiter showed shades of a personality. 

 

Well, then came House of Hades. I had plenty of quibbles with that book—the lazy writing, the lack of emotion, the frantic action-scene-after-action-scene pace, but my biggest gripe came when he retconned one of my favorite characters for the sake of a twist. 

 

Nico DiAngelo is gay. Apparently, he's had a crush on Percy this whole time. And you know what? Had that been foreshadowed from the beginning of the series, I wouldn't have minded. But it wasn't. Since his introduction, Nico has been written as though he had a crush on Annabeth and was jealous of Percy; but in this book, Riordan retcons it so that he's had a crush on Percy but covered it by pretending he had a crush on Annabeth. 

 

The kid is fourteen! No way a fourteen-year-old boy has enough self-awareness to cover his crush on another guy with a false crush on a girl. Ah, but Riordan anticipated this. You see, Nico was born in the 1930s, so he's mentally seventy-something. That's where all his self-awareness comes from. 

 

Uh, no. When Nico was introduced, he was twelve. He acted twelve. That was part of what made him such a good character: all of his actions, attitudes, and insights rang true as those of a twelve-year-old boy thrust into a situation he isn't prepared for and given responsibilities he can't handle. And now, all of a sudden, he's mentally seventy? When did that happen? When he was stuck in Tartarus? No, that wouldn't work, because Percy and Annabeth were both in Tartarus for around the same length of time as Nico, and they didn't age mentally. 

 

And like I said, had it made sense within the context, I would have been fine with this. But it didn't feel organic. It felt like the author stepping in to his own work and forcing things to mesh up the way he wanted them to mesh up, ignoring what he'd written thus far, just so he could saddle a fan favorite with all of this unearned angst. It felt so cheap.

 

 

By the time I finished the last book, Blood of Olympus, I was thoroughly disappointed with the entire series. 

 

So the main villain is the earth goddess, Gaia. She's billed as this unbeatable villain. So how do they defeat her? Take her up into the air, have Piper charmspeak her to sleep, and blow her up. Why didn't they do that four books ago, when Gaia was still awakening and it was revealed Piper could charmspeak? And all of these other little things—Frank's life tied to a piece of firewood, Hazel maybe having to return to the Underworld—were just forgotten about and suddenly okay. It was such a lazy resolution to a fun series.

[Briar King he/him]

@metal dragon

You fall into the typical Malazan pit I see a lot. Bk 1 is the single most make it or break it/love it hate it of the series. I will say that 2-10 are much better and down right epic. I would almost beg you to try bk 2 and then decide on it. It's well worth it.

[Retsam]

On 12/14/2014 at 10:46 AM, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Here's one: Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series. 

 

His Percy Jackson books were never what you'd call great literature, and they weren't meant to be. They were fun, irreverent looks at Greek mythology through a modern American lens, with just enough characterization to make you care. I liked them. As a college and later a grad student, they were the perfect diversion from my stressful classes. 

 

A few years after the original series ended, he published The Lost Hero, the first in a spinoff series introducing a Roman version of Camp Half-Blood, and demigods who are the children of Greek gods in their Roman aspects (so instead of a son of Zeus, we're introduced to a son of Jupiter). Which struck me as sort of fanficcy. Were I younger, that's the sort of thing I would have written, posted on FF.net, and thought was the most brilliant thing in the world. My impression of the book wasn't helped by the fact that the central character had no personality to speak of, and the other two fit almost perfectly into stereotyped roles (Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown). 

 

I was willing to give him another chance as an author, so I read the next book, Son of Neptune. And I really enjoyed it. He brought back Percy, and paired him with two new characters, both of whom I liked quite a bit. The series' momentum carried me through the next one, Mark of Athena, which I consider the high point of the series. All the characters had a good chemistry, the Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown grew beyond their stereotypes, and the son of Jupiter showed shades of a personality. 

 

Well, then came House of Hades. I had plenty of quibbles with that book—the lazy writing, the lack of emotion, the frantic action-scene-after-action-scene pace, but my biggest gripe came when he retconned one of my favorite characters for the sake of a twist. 

 

 

Nico DiAngelo is gay. Apparently, he's had a crush on Percy this whole time. And you know what? Had that been foreshadowed from the beginning of the series, I wouldn't have minded. But it wasn't. Since his introduction, Nico has been written as though he had a crush on Annabeth and was jealous of Percy; but in this book, Riordan retcons it so that he's had a crush on Percy but covered it by pretending he had a crush on Annabeth. 

 

The kid is fourteen! No way a fourteen-year-old boy has enough self-awareness to cover his crush on another guy with a false crush on a girl. Ah, but Riordan anticipated this. You see, Nico was born in the 1930s, so he's mentally seventy-something. That's where all his self-awareness comes from. 

 

Uh, no. When Nico was introduced, he was twelve. He acted twelve. That was part of what made him such a good character: all of his actions, attitudes, and insights rang true as those of a twelve-year-old boy thrust into a situation he isn't prepared for and given responsibilities he can't handle. And now, all of a sudden, he's mentally seventy? When did that happen? When he was stuck in Tartarus? No, that wouldn't work, because Percy and Annabeth were both in Tartarus for around the same length of time as Nico, and they didn't age mentally. 

 

And like I said, had it made sense within the context, I would have been fine with this. But it didn't feel organic. It felt like the author stepping in to his own work and forcing things to mesh up the way he wanted them to mesh up, ignoring what he'd written thus far, just so he could saddle a fan favorite with all of this unearned angst. It felt so cheap.

 

 

By the time I finished the last book, Blood of Olympus, I was thoroughly disappointed with the entire series. 

 

I haven't read the last book in the series yet (and managed to avoid reading your spoiler block for it while quoting this post, woot!); working my way through a series reread, first.  But we have interestingly similar, yet opposite views on the series.  I too have been somewhat disappointed by the Heroes of Olympus series; (though less so than you seem to be) but seemingly in opposite ways.

 

I loved the Roman aspects idea; it felt very Sanderon's Third Law of expanding what you already have.  (I also happen to love Roman history, so that probably doesn't hurt)  Part of my complaint is actually that they didn't do more with the Roman side of things.  You essentially get Son of Neptune showing the Roman side... and that's about it.  The Greek/Roman conflict plot has been thoroughly put on the backburner in favor of the, in my opinion, much less interesting nebulous threat of Gaea and the giants.

 

The Gaea threat, while on paper, is more threatening than Kronos, just lacks much weight for me; really it lacks the humanizing element to the threat that Luke provided in the original series.  Luke, and the other demigods fighting for Kronos, not only humanized the other side, but made the conflict much interesting than "obviously good vs. obviously evil".  The sequel series has lacked that, with Gaea being the indisputable evil, theoretically more powerful, but a lot less interesting threat.

 

I actually found Mark of Athena to be one of the weakest points, in terms of writing.  It seemed to me that Riordan really struggled with figuring out how to handle 7 protagonists, and as a result, while Annabeth has a somewhat strong role in the book, naturally, everyone else just gets a couple chapters here and there, and as a result no one else really has much of an "arc" or any growth to speak of.  House of Hades seemed to do better by picking a couple characters and focusing on them.

 

My problems with House of Hades are more general; while I enjoyed the book; I felt that it generally relieved tension for the series as a whole, by wrapping up some major plot points, when it really should have been ramping the tension up for the fourth book.

 

I sort of see a Portal/Portal 2 dynamic between the series; the first was really great and particularly had that feeling of being well constructed, no extraneous parts, where everything feels polished and contributes to the whole.  And then the second comes out, and it's pretty much more of the first; it's still really good, and has more content than the first, but also has more rough edges.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Retsam

[Blaze1616 he/him]

@metal dragon

You fall into the typical Malazan pit I see a lot. Bk 1 is the single most make it or break it/love it hate it of the series. I will say that 2-10 are much better and down right epic. I would almost beg you to try bk 2 and then decide on it. It's well worth it.

 

I really do not understand this viewpoint. Every person I've met, either in real life or on forums, who recommends Malazan always says this. If I were to read the series, then, should I even bother with book 1? Most answer with "yes." Why? If someone didn't like the first, no matter how good the rest might be why recommend they continue? If someone read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone and told me they did not like it, I would never tell them to continue reading, even though the books only get better. It just does not make sense to me. I would actually greatly appreciate someone explaining this to me, as I really only ever see it happen with Malazan.

[Quiver he/him]

I really do not understand this viewpoint. Every person I've met, either in real life or on forums, who recommends Malazan always says this. If I were to read the series, then, should I even bother with book 1? Most answer with "yes." Why? If someone didn't like the first, no matter how good the rest might be why recommend they continue? If someone read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone and told me they did not like it, I would never tell them to continue reading, even though the books only get better. It just does not make sense to me. I would actually greatly appreciate someone explaining this to me, as I really only ever see it happen with Malazan.

 

To be fair, I've seen (and said) it about a few other series. I think Eye of the World is a pretty bad, very cliché fantasy book, but people have told me that the series improves as it goes on and Jordan finds his own voice. I personally wouldn't recommend the first Discworld novel to someone who I was trying to get into the series... but then, each Discworld book is basically stand alone anyway.

[Briar King he/him]

It's hard to explain but it's the truth with this series. Some of it is because this book was written as a screenplay for a film and then when that fell through it was mildly touched up for a bk release. It is written way different then any of the 10 and from 2 on it gets the novel treatment. This might not sound like that big a deal(it wasn't for me, I loved bk 1) but for some its down right strange and hard to follow. People need to read bk 2 to get a better understanding of Erikson. I've never told anyone to skip bk 1 cause it has great setup for the series and is the introduction for a handful of characters in this vast saga.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Briar King

[Retsam]

On 12/18/2014 at 11:47 AM, Blaze1616 said:

I really do not understand this viewpoint. Every person I've met, either in real life or on forums, who recommends Malazan always says this. If I were to read the series, then, should I even bother with book 1? Most answer with "yes." Why? If someone didn't like the first, no matter how good the rest might be why recommend they continue? If someone read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone and told me they did not like it, I would never tell them to continue reading, even though the books only get better. It just does not make sense to me. I would actually greatly appreciate someone explaining this to me, as I really only ever see it happen with Malazan.

 

It's actually not that complicated, and it's not limited to Malazan, either.  It's just commonly recognized that the first book has some issues which later books improve on.  You could look up the TvTropes page for Growing the Beard, and get a whole list of series (both literature and otherwise) where this is the case.  But some notable examples: 

 

• The first two Dresden books are commonly acknowledged to be far weaker than the following books in the series.  
• The early Discworld books are, as Quiver mentions, rough compared to later ones, and may or may not be a bad starting place for the series (but lets not have that debate).
• The original Shannara trilogy isn't terribly memorable until the second book (or until halfway through the first book, at the earliest).  

The problem is exacerbated with Malazan being such a dense and difficult series to begin with (later books get less difficult, but it's still not an easy series by any means), but the concept of "the first book isn't as good" is in no way unique to Malazan.  I suspect if the later Harry Potter books were significantly more enjoyable than the first, you would recommend people read past the first one, even if they didn't enjoy that one a lot.  I know I would.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Retsam

[Unhinged he/him]

For me the star wars E.U. don't get me wrong there were a lot of awesome stories and I felt genuinely bad when Disney simply caned the whole thing. but there were just so many different Authors who each had their own ideas about how the universe should work and who didn't even bother to talk to one another that by the end it was a jumbled mess. 

 

Also both The wheel of time and A song of ice and fire both series started out great (seriously books 1-5 of the WOT rank as the 3rd-7th best fantasy books I have ever read (they will most likely fall further as Stormlight Archive progresses) but as they dragged on they began to fall apart. both series had the exact same problem for me, to many characters each getting their own story and ultimately bringing down the books. I don't care that Cersei Lannister is a b* this has been established for a long time we don't need a quarter of a book to reinforce this fact.

[ZoneZero]

I did not find Malazan's first book particularly hard to follow nor fragmented to the point that I didn't care about the 'main'ish characters. I had more problems with actually getting into book 2, which still rests on my kindle at page ~50.

 

Series I was disappointed with... well, Lord of the Rings for one. I did not have any expectations for the likes of Panem or Sword of Truth, so was not disappointed by them being bad. Lord of the Rings on the other hand... thought it would be better.

[gjustice99 she/her]

TwiLyghtSansSparkles, on 14 Dec 2014 - 10:46 AM, said:

Here's one: Rick Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series.

His Percy Jackson books were never what you'd call great literature, and they weren't meant to be. They were fun, irreverent looks at Greek mythology through a modern American lens, with just enough characterization to make you care. I liked them. As a college and later a grad student, they were the perfect diversion from my stressful classes.

A few years after the original series ended, he published The Lost Hero, the first in a spinoff series introducing a Roman version of Camp Half-Blood, and demigods who are the children of Greek gods in their Roman aspects (so instead of a son of Zeus, we're introduced to a son of Jupiter). Which struck me as sort of fanficcy. Were I younger, that's the sort of thing I would have written, posted on FF.net, and thought was the most brilliant thing in the world. My impression of the book wasn't helped by the fact that the central character had no personality to speak of, and the other two fit almost perfectly into stereotyped roles (Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown).

I was willing to give him another chance as an author, so I read the next book, Son of Neptune. And I really enjoyed it. He brought back Percy, and paired him with two new characters, both of whom I liked quite a bit. The series' momentum carried me through the next one, Mark of Athena, which I consider the high point of the series. All the characters had a good chemistry, the Poor Little Rich Girl and Class Clown grew beyond their stereotypes, and the son of Jupiter showed shades of a personality.

Well, then came House of Hades. I had plenty of quibbles with that book—the lazy writing, the lack of emotion, the frantic action-scene-after-action-scene pace, but my biggest gripe came when he retconned one of my favorite characters for the sake of a twist.

Nico DiAngelo is gay. Apparently, he's had a crush on Percy this whole time. And you know what? Had that been foreshadowed from the beginning of the series, I wouldn't have minded. But it wasn't. Since his introduction, Nico has been written as though he had a crush on Annabeth and was jealous of Percy; but in this book, Riordan retcons it so that he's had a crush on Percy but covered it by pretending he had a crush on Annabeth.

The kid is fourteen! No way a fourteen-year-old boy has enough self-awareness to cover his crush on another guy with a false crush on a girl. Ah, but Riordan anticipated this. You see, Nico was born in the 1930s, so he's mentally seventy-something. That's where all his self-awareness comes from.

Uh, no. When Nico was introduced, he was twelve. He acted twelve. That was part of what made him such a good character: all of his actions, attitudes, and insights rang true as those of a twelve-year-old boy thrust into a situation he isn't prepared for and given responsibilities he can't handle. And now, all of a sudden, he's mentally seventy? When did that happen? When he was stuck in Tartarus? No, that wouldn't work, because Percy and Annabeth were both in Tartarus for around the same length of time as Nico, and they didn't age mentally.

And like I said, had it made sense within the context, I would have been fine with this. But it didn't feel organic. It felt like the author stepping in to his own work and forcing things to mesh up the way he wanted them to mesh up, ignoring what he'd written thus far, just so he could saddle a fan favorite with all of this unearned angst. It felt so cheap.

By the time I finished the last book, Blood of Olympus, I was thoroughly disappointed with the entire series.

So the main villain is the earth goddess, Gaia. She's billed as this unbeatable villain. So how do they defeat her? Take her up into the air, have Piper charmspeak her to sleep, and blow her up. Why didn't they do that four books ago, when Gaia was still awakening and it was revealed Piper could charmspeak? And all of these other little things—Frank's life tied to a piece of firewood, Hazel maybe having to return to the Underworld—were just forgotten about and suddenly okay. It was such a lazy resolution to a fun series.

You posted about the same one as I did! Upvote for you! I hate that it took an ENTIRE book to defeat the first villan but in the second series the actual showdown lasts only a page! Though I do disagree with what you said about:

SPOILER

I like that he made Nico gay. I feel like it is possible he covered up his feelings for Percy by being nice to Annabeth because he was raised in a time when it was COMPLETELY socially and morally unacceptable to be gay so he wanted to make everyone think he was straight. I think it is one of the two plot twists that Rick actually got right. The other was in TLT when you find out that Luke is Kronos' minion.

 

I'm gonna be honest and say that the only reason that I finished the series is because I wanted to know what happened to the characters. I was so angry that he didn't say what happened to them.

 

Also Blood of Olympus Spoilers

The end of BOO was so cliche! Leo died then came back. And it was so OBVIOUS that he was going to do it! As if no one has done that before. I know 3 series that end this same way and the other two were written before this one. It was also incredibly boring that BOO had no major death. Sure Octavian died and it was funny but there should have been at least a little bit of tearjerking going on and there was absolutely none.

 

Don't even get me started on how many things he probably stole from J K Rowling because I am in the process of making a list.

Edited December 21, 2014 by gjustice99

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

You posted about the same one as I did! Upvote for you! I hate that it took an ENTIRE book to defeat the first villan but in the second series the actual showdown lasts only a page! Though I do disagree with what you said about:

SPOILER

I like that he made Nico gay. I feel like it is possible he covered up his feelings for Percy by being nice to Annabeth because he was raised in a time when it was COMPLETELY socially and morally unacceptable to be gay so he wanted to make everyone think he was straight. I think it is one of the two plot twists that Rick actually got right. The other was in TLT when you find out that Luke is Kronos' minion.

 

I'm gonna be honest and say that the only reason that I finished the series is because I wanted to know what happened to the characters. I was so angry that he didn't say what happened to them.

 

Also Blood of Olympus Spoilers

The end of BOO was so cliche! Leo died then came back. And it was so OBVIOUS that he was going to do it! As if no one has done that before. I know 3 series that end this same way and the other two were written before this one. It was also incredibly boring that BOO had no major death. Sure Octavian died and it was funny but there should have been at least a little bit of tearjerking going on and there was absolutely none.

 

Don't even get me started on how many things he probably stole from J K Rowling because I am in the process of making a list.

 

It wasn't Nico being gay that I took issue with. I mean, I won't go into the whole homosexuality debate, but I don't have a problem with homosexual characters in fiction. Aside from the lack of foreshadowing, what bothered me about that was that Jason only decided to be nicer to Nico once he revealed, under duress, that he had a crush on another boy. Why couldn't Jason have had compassion on him when he realized, I don't know, that Nico had been spurned by all the other gods and most of Camp Half-Blood because his dad had the audacity to mind his own business in the Underworld? Or that he hadn't had a real friend since Bianca died? Or that he felt he had too much to live down and had devoted his entire life to being the hero absolutely no one thought he could be? Or that he spent a week in Tartarus and nobody really seemed to care until they learned the giants were involved? Nico had a ton of traumatic experiences in his past that could have been grounds for sympathy on their own, so why did it have to be his crush on Percy that finally drove Jason to pity him? And Jason didn't even mention any of that stuff—as far as the Son of Jupiter was concerned, the only thing that mattered was that Nico diAngelo was gay. Had Riordan left that particular revelation out of the series, would Jason have even bothered?

 

I mostly finished the series out of obligation to my siblings—they both loved BOO, and I figured, if they liked it, Riordan must have done something right. How wrong I was. 

 

The battle with the giants was so lame. Piper sings to the snake people, they find the giants, they're losing, THE GODS SHOW UP YIPPEE, and the battle is over in three pages. It was hyped up as this humungous battle for four books, and then it's just…over? What the heck? 

 

Leo's death, while telegraphed from almost the first chapter, was decently done. Missing a little something, but not bad. Still, I would've liked it better if Riordan had played it as though Hazel would be the one to die, then have Leo be the one instead. Or something like that. I saw the twist from the beginning, so it lost a lot of its emotional impact for me.