Authors Known For The Wrong Book

[Ammanas]

So I saw this interesting article a while back about authors famous for a book/series when they have written a better one:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/19/famous-wrong-book-vonnegut-waugh-ishiguro

and was wondering if there were any others people wanted to share.

Here is mine

Ray Bradbury is famous for Farenheit 451, but I believe the Martian Chronicles are better

Steven Erikson is most famous for Memories of Ice, but I feel Midnight Tides is his best one

Iain M.Banks is most famous for Use of Weapons or Player of Games but I feel Surface Detail is his best one

Glen Cook- most people only recognize his name for The Black Company series, but I feel Instrumentalities of the Night is his best.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Ammanas

[Tsidqiyah he/him]

Brandon Sanderson ... hmm is there a wrong option here. OK bad example.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

I think it's interesting that some authors are known for one and only one book.

Case in point: William Golding, Lord of the Flies. Thanks to our work, people on this forum can name a few of his other books, but out in the wilds of the real world, I imagine people would have little to no idea of any other book he wrote.

As to what you are talking about: William Shakespeare with Romeo and Juliet. What's better? Just about everything not Romeo and Juliet.

[Caevita he/him]

One thing that really irked me on this front was when James Dashner's comment on Bluescreen (by Dan "I was writing postapocalyptic before you" Wells), a futuristic/scifi book listed his work on The Maze Runner (which, sure, is a fine series) but not The Eye of Minds which is itself futuristic/scifi and gives him a much more informed opinion.

To more directly answer the question, I was never super impressed by Ender's Game, but every other book in the series (the sequel trilogy, Ender's Shadow) were all great reads. Just a very different experience, which led to everyone who liked the first book losing interest, while everyone who might have legitimately enjoyed the later books never explored them because the first book didn't grab their attention.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

52 minutes ago, TheOrlionThatComesBefore said:

As to what you are talking about: William Shakespeare with Romeo and Juliet. What's better? Just about everything not Romeo and Juliet.

So true. That one is bad.

[Modal Seoul he/him]

George Orwell is famous for 1984, but I like Animal Farm better.

Stan Lee is famous for writing Spider-Man but I like his creation of the X-Men better.

The Tarzan books are famous, but The Jungle Book was written first.

Brandon Sanderson is famous for completing the Wheel of Time and writing the Stormlight Archive, but I personally like Warbreaker better than those. (But they are still awesome books.)

Richard Paul Evans is so famous for Michael Vey now, that everyone forgot his more thoughtful books.

[Sunbird she/her]

@Captains Domon Unless I'm grievously mistaken, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Tarzan books and Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book. Different authors and not an applicable example.

[Modal Seoul he/him]

12 minutes ago, Sunchicken said:

 Unless I'm grievously mistaken, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Tarzan books and Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book. Different authors and not an applicable example.

I know this, but I'm just pointing out that they are basically the same thing.

[Sunbird she/her]

@Captains Domon Oh, ok.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

Mercedes Lackey. Best known for her Valdemar books, especially the early ones like the Arrows and the Last Herod-Mage trilogies. I enjoy those, but I definitely think some of her later, less angsty stuff is better. Of what I've read, my favorite is the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms books, a set of novels in a world where ambient magic tries to enforce fairy tale tropes, but I'm not even close to reading everything she's done. 

[Julio]

On 9/6/2017 at 6:02 PM, Captains Domon said:

George Orwell is famous for 1984, but I like Animal Farm better.

Yes.... I have to disagree with you there. Well, that is, not about you liking Animal Farm better. Obviously you must have, if you think so. 

1984 is better. Animal Farm is really good, but 1984 goes into all of the thought processes and theory behind everything, rather than just a simple though excellent analogy of communism. 

Suzanne Collins is famous for the Hunger Games. I don't know that she's written anything else. Just, no. She's famous for the wrong book, whether or not there is a right one. 

[Sunbird she/her]

3 hours ago, Julio said:

Suzanne Collins is famous for the Hunger Games. I don't know that she's written anything else. Just, no. She's famous for the wrong book, whether or not there is a right one. 

*pokes head into thread* Suzanne Collins has written other books. She's got another series called The Underland Chronicles about a kid who discovers a slightly Alice-in-Wonderland-esque world beneath the basement of his NYC apartment building. There are five books, and the first one is called Gregor the Overlander.

[Retsam]

Steinbeck is probably best known for Grapes of Wrath (read it, didn't particularly care for it) or Of Mice and Men (which, admittedly, I haven't read); but East of Eden is one of the best books I've ever read.  I mostly stick to Fantasy and Sci-Fi, but it's one of the few books of "classic" literature that I have to go and re-read every once and awhile.

It's a difficult book to describe, it's sort of a multi-generational retelling of the Cain and Abel story, sort of an exploration of human potential for good and evil, but largely it's a just a compelling story with some really great characters.  (Oh, and a bit of trivia if anyone's a fan of Mumford And Sons: their song Timshel is a direct reference to East of Eden)

Edited September 12, 2017 by Retsam

[Draginon he/him]

When I first saw this thread I thought it was going to be about books being credited to the wrong author, like if someone assumed Dracula was written by Stephanie Meyer because vampires!

[Who Sharded?]

Werthead did a post about this a while back

http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2011/07/famous-for-wrong-book.html

[Dunkum he/him]

On 9/7/2017 at 10:44 PM, Julio said:

Yes.... I have to disagree with you there. Well, that is, not about you liking Animal Farm better. Obviously you must have, if you think so. 

1984 is better. Animal Farm is really good, but 1984 goes into all of the thought processes and theory behind everything, rather than just a simple though excellent analogy of communism. 

To be honest, I've generally found Orwell's non-fiction(ish) works to be better than either Animal Farm or 1984. Homage to Catalonia about his time fighting in the Spanish civil war and Down and out in Paris and London a somewhat fictionalized account about his experiences as a working poor man in Paris and a tramp in England are both far more interesting than either of the other two.  the first half of Road to Wigan Pier about life in poor mining communities in Northern England is good too, though the second half of the book is just an essay on socialism, which I found too dry.

[elinox she/her]

Jim Butcher is fairly well known for his Dresden Files series. However, his Codex Alera 6 book series is far better in my opinion!

Don't get me know, I love Dresden too, I just don't think the Codex Alera gets nearly as much love and attention as it should.

[SilverTiger she/her]

On 9/7/2017 at 9:18 PM, thegatorgirl00 said:

Mercedes Lackey. Best known for her Valdemar books, especially the early ones like the Arrows and the Last Herod-Mage trilogies. I enjoy those, but I definitely think some of her later, less angsty stuff is better. Of what I've read, my favorite is the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms books, a set of novels in a world where ambient magic tries to enforce fairy tale tropes, but I'm not even close to reading everything she's done. 

Definitely. I think that the 500 Hundred Kingdoms series much better than the early Heralds books. Also, some of the early Elemental Mages books are good, and I loved the Bedlam's Bard and Doubled Edge series. Although, there's a new Heralds series that is better (Herald-Spy series) that you might want to try.

[NamelessThirteenth]

Brent Weeks is better known for his Night Angel Trilogy but Lightbringer is waaaaaay better in my opinion...

Please don't shoot me

 

[Ammanas]

8 minutes ago, NamelessThirteenth said:

Brent Weeks is better known for his Night Angel Trilogy but Lightbringer is waaaaaay better in my opinion...

Please don't shoot me

 

Is he? I agree by the way, but thought Lightbringer was more popular.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

8 hours ago, SilverTiger said:

Definitely. I think that the 500 Hundred Kingdoms series much better than the early Heralds books. Also, some of the early Elemental Mages books are good, and I loved the Bedlam's Bard and Doubled Edge series. Although, there's a new Heralds series that is better (Herald-Spy series) that you might want to try.

I've read that one, the only Valdemar books I haven't read are the Mage Wars books. Don't get me wrong, I like the Valdemar books, I just like some of her other books more. I haven't read Bedlam's Bard or Doubled Edge, I'll have to give them a try sometime. 

[Dunkum he/him]

10 hours ago, elinox said:

Jim Butcher is fairly well known for his Dresden Files series. However, his Codex Alera 6 book series is far better in my opinion!

I haven't read much of Dresden files, and I didn't care for Codex Alera very much.  I did like The Aeronaut's Windlass a lot though.

 

7 hours ago, Ammanas said:

Is he? I agree by the way, but thought Lightbringer was more popular.

certainly on this board I have seen people praise lightbringer while dismissing the Night Angel series.  so in my experience, he is better known for lightbringer

[elinox she/her]

12 hours ago, Dunkum said:

I haven't read much of Dresden files, and I didn't care for Codex Alera very much.  I did like The Aeronaut's Windlass a lot though.

Actually, everyone I know who read his Aeronaut's Windlass hated it. I didn't care for it either; just didn't think it was decent Steampunk writing. *shrug*

[Ammanas]

15 minutes ago, Ookla the Elinox said:

Actually, everyone I know who read his Aeronaut's Windlass hated it. I didn't care for it either; just didn't think it was decent Steampunk writing. *shrug*

I actually liked it. Not as much as Dresden, but far,far more than the Codex Alera (full disclosure I only could get through the first book).

[Sunbird she/her]

@Ookla the Elinox Here to break the trend: I actually think The Aeronaut's Windlass is Jim Butcher's best book yet, and I've read all the Codex Alera and Dresden Files.