Explanation - invariably I will read a fantastic book, beautifully written with a sweeping or moving story that is profoundly impactful…and some amateur reviewer will have written, “That book is so boring! Blah, blah, blah, nothing exciting ever happens!” 🙄
When I read these, I often pause to try to imagine what sort of book those reviewers WOULD like, lol. No doubt its probably an elitist, pompous exercise…but its fun imagining for a moment a book filled with non-stop, over the top action, gory or imaginative deaths by the dozens, torrid romantic liasons, CIA and KGB and SS agents around every corner, etc. Ive been tempted to write that book, tongue in cheek, just so those reviewers would have something to be happy about.
Then I thought…maybe someone has already done this? Intentionally written a book so egregiously over-the-top that even those action-aholics might be tempted to say, “too fast, and too much excitement…” in their reviews?
Probably the books my husband reads. He has an inattentive attention span but really enjoys reading. He specifically sticks to Clive Cussler or Lee Child. I haven’t delved into these cos it’s not my personal cup of tea but I get it, they need the action to keep interested.
I’ve read a bunch of Preston/Child books. Some were pretty good, others not as much, if I’m remembering correctly. But definitely action packed. Was “Relic” a Preston/Child book?
If you want to know how a book like that might be, read Ron Goulart. Specifically his science fiction, like The Hellhound Project or Hail Hibbler or Big Bang. The vast majority of his work (a whopping 180 novels in total) is like that, albeit not for that reason: he just had a knack for formulae and a liking for money!
Interesting! Do you enjoy them?
Im not usually looking for over the top action or thriller novels, but if someone is good at their niche, whatever it is, I’m usually willing to give them a try.
I LOVE them.
Let me be absolutely, unequivocally clear: most of them are mediocre at best. Nearly everything I’ve ever read by him, mainly his SF, is basically the same novel with some variations, albeit intelligent and funny ones.
BUT.
They’re quick, outrageous, funny (the man was fond of satire and anarchic humor) and in every novel you can see the craftsman at work on another more-or-less identical, unrefined armchair, but what a comfy armchair it’ll be! I don’t know, I just find him immensely entertaining. He also was a pop culture historian with a lot of publications to his name and it shows in the best of ways.
His franchise work like the TekWar series by Shatner, which he ghost-wrote, a LOT of Flash Gordon and other things, is usually really good. The Groucho Marx: Detective series is a hoot.
If you read only one maybe try Hail Hibbler, it’s deranged :D
Thanks! Sounds fun.
Different people have different tastes. Having a different taste. Having a different taste does not make your preference more superior, nor does it make someone an “amateur reviewer” - whatever that means.
The tone of OPs post is a bit questionable. But “this is so boring, nothing happens” is definitely an amateur review in the same way “exciting book, so much happens”
Absolutely nothing about what he said has any correlation to feeling superior to anybody. He sees a common criticism and is criticizing that, which he’s completely free to do. I honestly think you feel lowkey superior to “nerds who read only big books and hate on Everyman books”
Having more selective tastes than someone else is okay. Having extremely negative feelings towards something everyone else likes is okay. Those are just opinions.
One of my favorites. I enjoyed the slow pace and prose that created an outstanding atmosphere. I can see why someone wouldnt like it though.
Which book are you referring to?
If someone were to write something like that, it might be a co-written, over the top spy-on-spy adventure with intrigue, violence, and sex in nearly every filthy, mind-melting paragraph. It’s possible. I mean hypothetically speaking. 🤠💙
Possible…but has it been done??
Read literally anything by John Ringo. I recommend the Into the Looking Glass series. It involves, among other things:
- a US submarine blasting rock music (as an in-universe soundtrack) to show how cool they are to the Chinese listening on sonar
- dual wielding sniper rifles
- mech suits
- anthropomorphic warrior cats
- a judo practicing, rock climbing, alien-fighting genius theoretical physicist that speaks with a Southern accent and repeatedly in-universe has to explain that Southerners can be smart too
- copious amounts of fawning sycophantism for the US military
I can’t tell if it’s entirely sincere/a bit cringe or if he knows what he’s doing and enjoys writing half parody, over-the-top nonsense because rule-of-cool works better when you’re not taking it seriously.
Interesting! Thanks for sharimg, and your bullet point list sounds hilarious. I’d love it if it was written in a self-aware, half-parody sort of way. The name sounds familiar…I may already have something kept his in my library.
On his authors note at the end of Under The Dome, Stephen King mentioned that the novel was one of those where his editor kept telling him to “keep the accelerator pressed to the floor.”
Wow, thats a ballsy editor, attempting to tell Stephen King how to write his book 😅.
Bit honestly, thats the kind if editors I wish we had more of.
We need a Michael Bay for books!
E. E. “Doc” Smith has entered the chat
Battlefield Earth is incredibly boring and internally inconsistent.
Despite the space battles that, among other things, involve a bunch of scots flying what is essentially a salvage ship rigged with explosives into the hangar bay of an enemy capitial ship and blowing it up. Or bugging the room of a master spy and then watching as he sweeps for bugs. You’d think that it should be rather exciting. Somehow it fails at it spectacularly.
The only decent part of the book is the initial world building IMO, where the initial group of post-apocalypse survivors have forgotten how to read english but still speak it, and the aliens never bothered to learn, so when the protag learns to read english from finding/visiting a library it kicks off the plot.
Sir Apropos of Nothing fits this description for me. The point of it is that big, dramatic, awful things are happening constantly and Apropos, along with everyone around him, is constantly on the brink of absolute disaster. It’s also funny and legitimately well-written. The kind of person who makes that complaint would probably love it.
Probably not written for your stated intent, and while sometimes full of romances and brief exciting events, most of E.M. Forster’s books have no plot and absolutely nothing of any consequence happens.
His books are not about events or plots. They are about people, class contrasts, and a bit of hypocrisy. He definitely had points to make.
I watched several of the movies made from his books, and on first viewing when I was very young, I couldn’t figure them out, they were unmemorable and made no sense. On second viewing, when older, and having read about what he was trying to do, they made a lot more sense and he practically hits you over the head with his points.
Those books already exist haha; people (generally speaking) will always want a book like that; I’m so glad the slower, more thoughtful books exist for people like me who get overwhelmed by too much Action and Plot. No reason to put another one out in the world, there is probably one being written, unironically, at this very moment.
“There’s nothing new under the sun”
Bleak House. Dickens wrote it to be meandering, nonsensical, and pointless. Like the trial it’s about.
Wow, good contribution! A different genre, but sort of the same point. Thanks!
have… have you never been to an airport “bookstore”? (i’m elitist! kill me!)
Lol. As an aside…its interesting how many people people seem to misunderstand or miss the intent of my original post. There was no desire to demean or cast aspersions on anyone, just having some fun with different reading habits and preferences.
i certainly bear no ill will. i thought the original post was going to be about writing a book in which nothing happens.
I don’t mind books where “nothing happens” or more specifically a book in which the plot is not advancing. That said though, when a book focuses on the “wrong” thing, it can extremely boring extremely fast. The best example i have for this is ‘The blade itself’ by Joe abercrombie. Basically the its the first book in a trilogy that serves as a character introduction more as anything else. We don’t follow any plot, there is almost 0 worldbuilding, almost 0 magic, almost 0 anything except like i said, character work. If you are a character driven reader, im sure that can be very entertaining for you, but for someone like me who really does not care about characters, it was the most boring, painful book to get through. Every time i would sit down for an hour to read, i asked myself how i just read dozens of pages filled with writing, but still felt like i read nothing at the same time.
I think for most people who complain about nothing happening, its just that the book focuses on something they don’t care about. If you go into a murder mystery, you expect there to be a murder mystery. If the book focuses on something else and maybe even has a relatively fast moving plot etc., it could still feel like nothing is happening because you are focusing on the murder mystery plot that’s not advancing, so it feels like the whole book isn’t advancing. Another polar opposite example of the blade itself, is “Rhythm of war” by Brandon sanderson. I love that book to death. We get really in-depth about the magic system and get to explore more of the world that sanderson has created. Some of the reviews on the other hand complain about “nothing happening”, the same way i was when reading the first law. And its not necessarily that there wasn’t anything happening in rhythm of war, its just the the reviewers probably didn’t like on what the book focused on.
I think meeting expectations is a big thing in liking a book. If you go in expecting something that isn’t the case, it can very easily feel like nothing is happening.
Well said. My rather superficial observation was just the feeling I get when, after enjoying a fantastic, packed with content book, I read a one star review that says it was horrible, or boring, or confusing, etc. I always think, C’mon, man! If you didnt like that, what DO you like?!?
I read a one star review that says it was horrible
I always think, C’mon, man! If you didnt like that, what DO you like?!?
I have been part of r/fantasy and follow fantasy “booktubers” etc. actively for a couple of years now. Its insane that even though we all seem to share the love for the same genre (Even subgenre most of the time), the difference in enjoyment can very drastically. I can agree with 1 person on many series (Rating / enjoyment vise), but can also massively disagree on other books. Sometimes i can’t fathom how a book got a good rating by someone i usually agree with, or can’t understand how someone gave such a bad rating to a book i thought was wonderfull.
There is 1 person in particular that is the biggest mystery to me. We share the same favourite author and seem to like the same kinds of books outside of fantasy. But besides that, we very drastically. Like i can’t agree with 85% of the reviews he makes, but again, we share the same favourite author. So sometimes i can see how 2 people can love the same book, but for 2 completely different reasons. I often notice that when someone criticizes something in a book i just read and i think to myself “Huh, didn’t even notice that”. Or when someone raves about something in a book, and to me that thing they are raving about is so unimportant, i didn’t even notice its “brilliance”.
Yes tastes and preferences. Very weird things that seem to change from person to person, even from time to time.