I wonder if anyone else has given up on The Ships of Earth where I currently am doing so. I'm right before where Hushidh "seduces" Issib for the first time, and I just can't make myself read it. I don't think the scene is repulsive; I've simply peeked ahead and decided that no two people would ever speak like that in that situation, so I have no desire to read it in full. Does anyone else think this?
Actually, I've become stuck for weeks at several previous points in Homecoming. It seems well-written, but more like a very long description than a story in which you wonder what's going to happen next.
[ April 29, 2005, 11:41 AM: Message edited by: Omega M. ]
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Homecoming is, to this day, the only OSC works I started but didn't finish. It's been years ago (when they were first published) so I don't remember where I got hung up, but I know it was around the 3rd book somewhere. I own all five, but have never been motivated to go back to them.
I really enjoyed the first book, but after that, my enthusiasm dwindled and I found myself plodding through them.
I don't know why though, and I know a lot of people here really liked that series. I guess it just didn't speak to me, or it did and I wasn't listening.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
I've given up on a lot of OSC books. Most I've finished eventually, but some are still outstanding. Most notably, fairly early in Pastwatch I started skipping the Columbus sections and just skim-reading the future sections, which I thought were way more interesting.
Posted by jeniwren (Member # 2002) on :
I had the same problem with the Homecoming series.
Love all his other books, including Saints and Stone Tables and the Women of Genesis books. For whatever reason, I just didn't connect with those. But then I couldn't make my way through the Lord of the Rings books either.
Have you ever had a book you loved when you were younger, went back many years later to re-read and realized that the connection that had you loving the book when you were younger is no longer there? Or the opposite? Tried to read a book when you were younger that you hated that you really get into now?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Silas Marner fits the latter description. I tried reading it when I was 14 and just hated it - couldn't get through it. I tried it last year, and I loved every bit of it. Same book; different Katie.
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
I never had any problem getting through the Homecoming series. "Getting through" sounds so terrible, though. At any rate, I enjoyed them quite a bit. The only books where I found the diction really hard to take was The Boxcar Children series. I mean really, who get's along with their siblings that well?
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
Well, I got through the "seduction" scene. Issib handled himself pretty well, but all of Hushidh's jokes about "exams with extra credit" and "being slightly whelmed" seemed totally artificial. Perhaps they were meant as a sort of nervous laughter, but they seemed too deliberately cute for that. And then the whole scene ends with a too-neat little moral about picking the fruit of the tree of life for other people. Horrible.
Now I'm on around page 154 and have to go through another gross-out description of camel cheese (the first one was funny; the subsequent ones are wearing thin) and a far-too-technical remark by Zdorab about "animal protein." Peeking a little further ahead, I see some disgusting descriptions of nursing babies that I'm sure are meant to be touching. The concept of the Homecoming series is interesting, but the writing so often fails to match the grandeur of the concept.
Posted by Katarain (Member # 6659) on :
I loved the homecoming books...
But I have to ask... Why the heck are you peeking ahead?? I mean... Who DOES that?!!
-Katarain
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I also had the same problem with the Homecoming series -- only made it through two or three of the five books.
Omega - the Pastwatch book though -- which remains one of my favorite OSC books -- I had a hard time staying in it through the first five chapters, as it gave all the background, but then when the twist comes the whole story line picks up and becomes quite hard to put down.
I'm glad I pushed myself to continue reading the first part, though -- because without knowing all the background, the rest of the book wouldn't have had as much impact.
It just isn't as fast paced as some of his other works up front.
Farmgirl
Posted by HesterGray (Member # 7384) on :
I just finished The Ships of Earth. Just, as in, like, an hour ago. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it. I can't really tell you that it gets better, because I don't think it was ever worse. Everybody has their own tastes in books, even ones by the same author.
Posted by sarque (Member # 7953) on :
I never had a problem getting through the Homecoming series. I read them all within a month or two, when Earthborn came out in paperback nine years ago. I also reread them last year.
Homecoming ranks right up there with the Ender series for me, in terms of enjoying the story and having the characters stick with me.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Well, I never meant to imply that it is a bad series. OSC doesn't write no junk.
I personally just couldn't seem to get attached to the characters enough to be drawn into the story. Maybe there were too many characters or something, but I just had a hard time sticking with it.
But that has been a few years back. I still have the books -- maybe I should go back and try again.
Farmgirl
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Different books speak to different people. I got bored, honestly, and that doesn't often happen. But I'm not gonna claim that they were inferior novels, they just didn't grab me like most OSC stuff.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I never write the same book twice. I always have characters do and say what I think they would do and say. And not every reader will like every book.
If I DID write the same book over and over, then those who liked one would be sure to like them all.
But those who hated one would be sure to hate them all. <grin>.
Mainly, though, I'd hate my own life, if I had to write the same book over and over.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)