I give a book the bullshit test. I am consider myself well read and generally by the first chapter you should have a decent idea what the protagonist is like, the tone of story and even get a good picture of his surroundings. But if the first chapter is rough going and begins to read like the author is in love with his own words or trying to drive up the word count by being unnecessarily verbose then I quickly lose patience.
There are times when I’ve been fooled though for example Court of Broken Knives. it was like the author decided to mash several books into one. Each protagionist would have told an interesting story themselves but it kept jumping back and forwards between each one and in the end the story really didn’t go anywhere. I would have thrown it against a wall if I hadn’t been reading it on a Kindle.
There is also circumstances when a series might start strong, but starts to drag a bit towards the end. You end up forcing yourself to finish it because you’ve already gone through six of the books.
On the other hand that’s why Dickens’ stuff is so damn long and has all these subplots that go nowhere. The comparison that another poster had to television is apt – a lot of episodes even in this “new Golden Age of Television” are pretty much filler, as were many of Dickens’ segments.
I find that I’ve developed a short set of almost subliminal red flags that tell me a book isn’t going to be any good.
- Cardboard female character(s) with no actual human qualities are present in the first few chapters. - bin it
- Clunky exposition of the parameters of the world the characters live in (the expository chunk) - probably bin it.
- Far future novel with no notion of feminism as a social development. Sigh.
- Far or even near future novel with hereditary aristocracy. Sigh.
- Mary Sue
That does for about 50% of the SF that shows up in our local library right there. ‘The next book in the interminable (title) Saga!’ is a surefire reason to avoid a book except in very rare circumstances (i.e. the author’s name is Stross or Scalzi).
If I think I can trust the writer, I give them space: Because of Middlemarch, I went with George Eliot through Romola, which is about 200 pages of deeply researched, slogging exposition, followed up by one particular specific gesture that jolted me awake, then I don’t remember the rest. I still trusted her after that, too.
On the other hand I once worked at a bookstore where the manager told me that the home office liked this one book and was pushing it, so he wanted to know if I liked it. I knew The Bridges of Madison County was dead-soul awful after a few pages (and stopped wasting time with it right there) because, as someone wrote about it, it reads like someone who hasn’t read Hemingway thinks Hemingway wrote. And, crucially: it’s.not.even.funny. Bastard.
What I read was a pastiche of fantasy cliches. It was unreadable.
Very same experience (although IIRC he switchs into Whalopedia mode quite a few times, no?), well worth it in the end.
In a similar classic-maritime-novel vein: Conrad’s Nostromo, approx. 400 pages long, of which the first 100-odd are dull and unengaging, but somehow ended up being one of my all-time faves (I also love his much-shorter Victory, and the novella Youth) and is currently maturing for an anticipated reread in a few years time 
What I was going to say. This. Do it.
Had to put it somewhere, didn’t want to create a new topic. Sorry.
Ouch, that’s gotta smart.
“the penetrating fragrance of fresh carnivore dung.”
If a book isn’t holding me I will move it from the nightstand to the drawer in my nightstand, the contents of which I donate to my church book sale when it has filled with books I won’t finish.
I usually re-gift said books to friends who might appreciate them more than i did. Which reminds me i need to go through my books and see if anything needs to be culled. I don’t buy books often so i typically am careful to buy books i’m relatively sure i’ll enjoy but bad buys do happen.
That and his dreadful politics.
I’m unaware of his political views. I try to judge books on their merits and not those of the author.
I stopped reading anything by Orson Scott Card once I realized he was a right wing loon.
Card’s hate has come to color my experience of his fiction – as, I think, it should. Neither fiction nor its creators exist in a vacuum; nor is the choice to consume art or support an artist morally neutral. Orson Scott Card is monstrously homophobic; he’s racist; he advocates violence and lobbies against fundamental human rights and equates criticism of those stances with his own hate speech.
I was aware of Card’s beliefs very early on. The only novel that I felt might be effected by it was the one with the Pequinos. The whole religious aspect of that book was confusing and didn’t seem to help the plot in any way. Maybe it did for someone with a religious mindset.
When my 13-year-old kiddo brought it home and raved about it, I thought, ‘Huh. So it appeals to a precocious adolescent.’ That’s as close to reading it or anything by him I’ve been. Side note: by the time the sequel came out, the boy had outgrown that author. The boy was 15. Nuff said.
Another weird thing about Dan Brown is the factual inaccuracy of nearly everything he writes. I mean, it’s so extreme it’s just got to be purposeful driving trollies.
List. List. List.
Martin Savidge: When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline?
Dan Brown: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true… [A]ll that is fiction, of course, is that there’s a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.
— CNN Sunday Morning, interview with Dan Brown, aired May 25, 2003
“The worst lind of lie is the one you tell yourself” – unknown
I had read Ender’s Game and highly enjoyed it, found out shortly after about his views and i must confess that it did sour me wanting to read his other books. I do believe Ender’s Game 100% worth reading and would recommend it, but i have no intention of giving my money and time to someone like that. If someone else can overlook this about the author i’m not going to criticize or fault them for it, but for me its something i can’t overlook.
