SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Inspired by the book stats thread...
What books have lived up to or completed failed to meet their hype?

Did Not:

The Princess Bride
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Thus Spoke Zarathustra = boring
The Horse Whisperer - I had to struggle through this one as a friend wanted to discuss it with me
Bridget Jones's Diary - still don't understand the hype

Did

A Game of Thrones
The Name of the Wind
The First Law
Falling in Love with Hominids
Remnant Population - i put this one off for a long time, but I loved it when I finally read it

I'm sure there are more that I could categorize. I have to fight one tendency which is to refuse to read a "popular" book as I've been burned by them before (two are in the Did not category above).

I was just looking at this for books that I've read or attempted so far in 2019.

The people were right: The Raven and the Reindeer

The people were wrong/biggest disappointment: The Eye of the World

That last is in the "go big or go home" spirit. I went home.

LOL! Thanks Melanie, I'm so glad we're exploring this more.

And Raucous, that made me real life laugh XD

I'm with Raucous, Eye of the World gave and Deadhouse Gates were very disappointing. I also did not like Wizard's First Rule. A sad ratio indeed for my ALL TIME FAVORITE GENRE PROBABLY.

I did however love Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (JOOOO! Just be cool man!)

And The Fifth Season (Nora, you are real life too cool. Don't cool off anymore, you're perfect.)

The Eye of the World and Eragon are probably two of the biggest all-time disappointments for me. From this year's reading, I guess it would be Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

And The Fifth Season, Ninefox Gambit, and Children of Time all more than lived up to their hype for me.

I'm also often pretty resistant to reading things that are popular - I've never read Sanderson or Rothfuss, for instance. There are probably a couple others I'm not thinking of right now that I put off reading but ended up loving.

Right:

The Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. All the books ranged from good to great for me.

Wrong:

So far pretty much everything with LGBTQ characters. I think people are so hungry for these types of books that they are praising things that I consider hot garbage, like Binti and River of Teeth.

It’s not like gay SFF just popped into existence 18 months ago. The New Wave back in the 60s had lots of it. Samuel Delaney, et al. And the aforementioned Vorkosigan series has from the get-go in the 80s had gay and bisexual characters as just regular characters.

What definitely did work for me were the highly acclaimed

The Fifth Season
Hyperion
Children of Time
The Way of Kings
The Left Hand of Darkness (strangely enough I never read Le Guin before joining this group. I tried a Fantasy novel in the 80ies, decided it was not to my liking and dismissed her after that. I had no idea how much better her SF is!)

Books where I couldn't get into the hype at all, and that only escaped DNF cause I payed money for them (and I still have to learn to not feel somehow guilty for my not liking them ^^')

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Assassin's Quest
The Song of Achilles
The Once and Future King
Ancillary Justice
A Memory Called Empire

I like most things that the people say are great.

Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Good Omens by Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman
Hitchhikers Guide by Douglas Adams
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Murderbot series
Imperial Radch series
Daughter of Smoke and Bone was raved about. It’s great. Actually anything Laini Taylor writes. Loved Strange the Dreamer as well.
The Song of Achilles
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Graveyard Book
Harry Potter
Anything by Mark Lawrence.
A Memory Called Empire
Robin Hobbs Fitz books
Hubby said that Boy Swallows Universe By Trent Dalton which has won every major award in Australia this year is also excellent.

One of my top “people got it wrong” books is The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur. Couldn’t stand it. Everyone loved the thing but nope....couldn’t get into it. It’s not poetry to me. It did have some interesting thoughts which gave it 2⭐️ but other than that blerk.

Another that people raved about is Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks by Annie Spence. Nope 👎

A Wrinkle in Time. Yeah sorry but nope.

And I wasn’t as in love with The Night Circus as everyone else seemed to be.

I read these last year. I’m stuck at 30% on Cinder because it’s not interesting me anymore.

Mostly this year I’m only going to finish it if it’s good. Life’s too short for shit books.

I’ll happily join in on the piling on regarding The Eye of the World. That book made me want to punch puppies. And I love puppies. There’s no way I will ever read any other book in that series. A friend of mine has read that series *multiple times.* I can’t imagine that...

I also quit A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius years ago because it was so pretentious and annoying and it had been hailed as a Best Book of the Year and that made it even more pretentious and annoying.

Happily, there are so many wonderful books that have met or exceeded their hype or reputation for me:

Classics:

Anna Karenina
The Grapes of Wrath
The Catcher in the Rye

Contemporary lit:

The Art of Fielding
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

And more recently, I’ve hit a treasure trove of deservedly-hyped SFF books:

The Fifth Season & the whole Broken Earth trilogy

Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy (and I’m only a book into the Liveship Traders trilogy and loved it)

And the Queen of them all, Ursula K. Le Guin, whose work continues to blow me away. She was a treasure.

People are right:
Harry Potter, ASOIAF, Realm of the Elderling, The Expanse, Peter Grant are some high profiled series I love.
Ursula Le Guin (though it took me a second try), Terry Pratchett, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ian McDonald, GRRM, Kameron Hurley, Yoon Ha Lee....Too many to mention....

People are wrong:
I happen to have my own shelf for disappointing books: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... but still need to mention some I guess:
The Way of Kings
We Are Legion
Kings of the Wyld
Dragonflight
Tigana
Shards of Honor
Ringworld
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Scalzi, Vonnegut and Bradbury.

People got it Right

Wool Omnibus-you will be on edge of your seat on all pages here
The Martian
Ready Player One
The Final Empire- and all books by this author
Children of Time
The Night Circus- worth the hype!
Illuminae-Ditto

People got it Wrong

All Our Wrong Todays- recommended and hyped, not so worthy of it though.
The Humans-kind of boring, not worthy the hype
Nimona- not terrible but not worthy of all the hype
Cinder- could not read it
Leviathan Wakes- I could not care enough to read this long series
The Bone Season- most didn't like it but it was 5 stars for me
Throne of Glass- the first 3 books are OK but it's a struggle to go on with the series after that.
An Enchantment of Ravens- a wonderful cover and all the hype made me buy this on audio. I gave it back.
The Diabolic- a totally under hyped book that is 5 stars though. (as all books by this author!)
A Shadow Bright and Burning- another under hyped series totally worth it
Red Queen- people didn't liked it enough, and I agree that this series has many flaws and this series is at the same time over hyped, but I liked it even though.
Artemis- people bashed it but I liked it
All the Birds in the Sky- not totally bad but even though over hyped

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Assassin's Quest didn't work for me too. Too long and boring, both of them.

Anna Karenina, boring, so the woman betrayed her husband, so what? Men do that too and no one writes a mammoth size book about it.

The Catcher in the Rye- boring, it is well written but I couldn't get into it at all even trying.

People Got It Right:

Harry Potter series
ASOIAF
The Martian
Malazan BOTF
Liveship Trader series so far (will be reading book #3 soon)
Children of Time (I'm afraid to read the 2nd book)

People Got It Wrong
Ready Player One - I get the nostalgic elements, but the plot and characters are huge meh
Pretty much Scalzi's second and beyond books of any series
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - boring until almost the very end ...
The Three-Body Problem - to be fair, the ending of 2nd book and 3rd book definitely made up for the disappointment of the 1st and majority of 2nd books.

How could I have forgotten to mention that I join with the others saying Harry Potter lived up to and exceeded the hype? Especially as it progressed through the series.

Another book that disappointed relative to the hype was The Kite Runner. A cartoonish villain brought that book way way down in my estimation.

Anthony wrote: "How could I have forgotten to mention that I join with the others saying Harry Potter lived up to and exceeded the hype? Especially as it progressed through the series.

Another book that disappoi..."

My love for Harry Potter runs very deep (even though young me resisted the hype at first) and I will forever say that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite out of the lot. (The more disappointing that JKR has made some....questionable statements in the recent past. But that's a different conversation.)

Now, let's see about other books that deserved the hype:

SF/F
The Fifth Season (gonna add my voice to the chorus)
Watchmen
The Left Hand of Darkness
Also: Terry Pratchett (Nation was the first book of his I'd ever read and I've loved him ever since. Though I will say, as a general rule, that the Discworld books got stronger over the years.)

Classics
Orlando
Long Day's Journey into Night (I loved just reading this, but seeing it performed last year really sent my appreciation for it through the roof.)
Invisible Man

Contemporary Lit
Unaccustomed Earth (If you like short stories, you have to read this.)
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
Beloved (I guess this could also go into the "classics" list - that line is kinda blurry)
The Joy Luck Club

People got it wrong with

SF/F
Falling Free (I have been told that the other books in the Vorkosigan series are better, so I'm up for giving it another try.)
Future Home of the Living God

Classics
Wuthering Heights (honestly, I do not understand the hype. Imho The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the book by a Brontë sister people should read.)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
On the Road
The Catcher in the Rye

Anthony wrote: "How could I have forgotten to mention that I join with the others saying Harry Potter lived up to and exceeded the hype? Especially as it progressed through the series.

Another book that disappoi..."

Harry Potter is the most over hyped book of all times. I agree that it isn't bad but a lot of people nowadays talk about it in all their Youtube videos and compare every new book to Harry Potter, measuring their quality by how alike to Harry Potter the books are. My kids will read a lot before they read Harry Potter, so they don't get trapped into that.

Seeing some comments I have to add

The Three-Body Problem on the people got it right side. Deserves all the applaus it gets.

ASOIAF on the people got it wrong side. By book five I only skimmed pages and stopped caring about the characters.


Harry Potter is a generation gap in our family. My mother loved the books (I inherited them after her death), my boys love them, while I am indifferent.

Kaa wrote: "The Eye of the World and Eragon are probably two of the biggest all-time disappointments for me. From this year's reading, I guess it would be [book:Jonathan Strange & M..."

I agree, all three books were way too long and boring.

I love that we all love and hate diversely.

Silvana wrote: "I love that we all love and hate diversely."

;) We have to - otherwise there were no hype our own taste could differ from ;)

I'm having trouble thinking of books that lived up to the hype. Of the books I've read this year:

- The Riyria Revelations
- The Farseer Trilogy
- I'm reading the magic ship and I think that the livetrader series is going to be added to this list.

Books that did not live up to the hype for me:

- IT
- The Night Circus
- Uprooted
- The Book Thief
- The Girl on The Train
- Caraval
- Six of Crows and the sequel

Sera ~ Catty Reader wrote: "Books that did not live up to the hype for me:

- IT"

It cured me of ever wanting to read another Stephen King book.


Leticia wrote: "Harry Potter is the most over hyped book of all times. I agree that it isn't bad but a lot of people nowadays talk about it in all their Youtube videos and compare every new book to Harry Potter, measuring their quality by how alike to Harry Potter the books are. My kids will read a lot before they read Harry Potter, so they don't get trapped into that."

Yeah, my tastes completely diverged from the mainstream with these books. I appreciate that these got kids to read, but I found the first one to be decidedly Not Good.


On a more positive note, The Catcher in the Rye definitely lived up to the hype. I didn’t read it until I was 30, so I certainly wasn’t an impressionable youth when I encountered it. I had to keep flipping back to the copyright page to verify it had been written 40 years earlier, because it felt so modern.

I don't pay much attention to what's being hyped enough to remember what was/is hyped ... except I don't see what all the fuss was/is about:

The Martian
Wool
Song of Fire and Ice (aka Game of Thrones ... I actually find a kind of perverse pleasure in the fact that it's now known by GoT rather than the actual series title; I only wish I had stopped reading it at book one instead of book three)

Most of the other "hyped" stuff people have mentioned here isn't something I'd read in the first place.

The People Got it Right:

Harry Potter
Neil Gaiman (almost everything)
Terry Pratchett (Discworld, mostly)
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (though I can't remember if that was hyped when I picked up it or whether I was one of the hypers)
Bear and the Nightingale
Night Circus
Dark Tower (mostly)
To Kill a Mockingbird



The People Got it Wrong:

Brandon Sanderson
Name of the Wind
Locke Lamora
Farseer
Twilight
Little, Big
The Shining
Brent Weeks
Wuthering Heights
The Three Musketeers
Everything by Charles Dickens (except maybe Christmas Carol)
All the Birds in the Sky
Ready Player One


I'm sort of tempted to put Lord of the Rings up there, just to annoy people, but I like the story, even if I find the writing boring...

I'll probably think of more later...

Anthony wrote: "How could I have forgotten to mention that I join with the others saying Harry Potter lived up to and exceeded the hype? Especially as it progressed through the series. "

First book OK, but as the series progressed I wanted to slap Harry upside the head to knock a bit of sense into him. And it had the most blah ending. I felt that harry didn't mature much during the series and was still acting like whatever age he was in the first book as he was in the last book and still running off to "save the world".

Of course, I was very much spoiled by reading the The Name of the Wind first which I felt did a much better wizard in training story line.

The Eye of the World had it's ups and downs but was over all fairly good (better than Harry Potter). Same for Robin Hobb's books (ditto) though the Liveship series, especially Ship of Magic, had another character that I felt like knocking some sense into.

I'm thinking about a few that were specifically hyped by people who usually have a similar taste to mine.

Right:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Ninefox Gambit
The Fifth Season
Tawny Man

Wrong:
The Traitor Baru Cormorant (I'm still sorry about this Allison!)
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (?!)
A Memory Called Empire (I liked it and will read more, but it was a bit of a disappointment after everyone raved about it.)
Ancestral Night (Five stars from some people I can usually trust, it was a struggle.)
Do You Dream of Terra-Two? (It was OK, but I expected something amazing.)
Liveship Traders (hate)

(Add book stopped working, so no links for Hobb.)

Haha! Don't be sorry, everyone was RAVING about Traitor Baru.

I was also let down by

Children of Blood and Bone (it was every YA trope strung together! The part that was "different" the pull from the Orisha tales was hardly there at all!)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (ugh, I wanted to LOVE this! It had so many of the things that make my heart happy! But I found it had a lot of things going on that had nothing to do with the story and that made it a real slog.)

A Court of Thorns and Roses (this was a lot of work to retell the Ballad of Tam Lin and honestly? I thought the short version was more exciting.)

I love all of the Jane Austen books and I liked both Bronte sisters. There, I said it.

(Sorry Travis and other academics) I think Melville is full of crap.

Their Eyes Were Watching God was easily one of the best books I read that were recommended reading in high school.

I'll also stand up for Book Thief, I thought I was going to be bored and angry at it and even with that mindset, it made me cry at the end.

Completely agree about Ancestral Night, A Court of Thorns and Roses (ugh- Maas and I are just not agreeable) and Black Leopard Red Wolf.

Of those I think I’m most upset about BLRW because of the potential.

The people got it wrong:
The Name of the Wind. There, I said it. This is the most hyped fantasy I've ever read and I hated it. This is my ultimate everyone is wrong book.

Artemis
Children of Blood and Bone
The Stars My Destination
To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Aurora
Arkwright
Dreamsnake
The Snow Queen
Robopocalypse
Grimspace

The people got it right:
Illuminae
The Lord of the Rings
All Systems Red
Ancillary Justice
A Memory Called Empire
The Traitor Baru Cormorant
The Colour of Magic
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Ninefox Gambit

The People Were Right
The Sparrow

N. K. Jemisin – I’ve read and greatly enjoyed 8 of her books.

Claire North – I’ve read two of her books, Touch and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and really enjoyed both.

The Martian

Uprooted

A Wizard of Earthsea and its sequels

Dawn and its sequels

Abercrombie’s First Law books

The Wheel of Time - Because somebody has to put it in this category to offset all the rest of you, and I did enjoy it! ;) Epic fantasy is my favorite SF&F subgenre, so I do have more patience with its tropes than I do with the tropes of other SF&F subgenres. I thought the first book was overly simple and definitely full of tropes, but I enjoyed it and I especially enjoyed the growing complexity as the series progressed and just the classic epic fantasy-ness of it. The author did have many odd writing quirks, but they were a thing to laugh and commiserate with fellow fans about, and they provided fodder for sarcastic comments in reviews.

I would put Robin Hobb’s entire Elderlings series in the “People were Right” category, but I initially discovered it before I’d ever heard anybody talking about it. The people were right, but I wasn’t listening to them.

The People Were Wrong
I didn’t necessarily hate most of these, but I didn’t think they lived up to their hype.

Red Rising - Written well enough, but very derivative and predictable.

All the Birds in the Sky – This is the book you would give somebody if you wanted to introduce them to as many SF&F tropes as possible all at once.

Lord of Light – Glimmers of interestingness, but the writing style did not work well for me at all.

Red Mars – There were parts of this I really liked, but it was a slog and the story got less interesting as it progressed.

Neuromancer - This one I hated. Although in fairness, I don’t think there’s that much recent hype. Mostly what I’ve seen is nostalgic hype from people who first read it around the 80’s. There’s discussions about how influential it was, but that’s true enough and isn’t the same as saying it’s the “best book ever”. So maybe this really shouldn’t be on the list, but I wanted another moment to complain about it. ;)

I love all of these responses and everyone's different takes on books. This is fascinating!

The people got it right (mix of SFF, classics and contemporary that have stayed with me since reading):

The Broken Earth Trilogy
Farseer Trilogy
His Dark Materials Trilogy
Anything Ursula K. Le Guin
Anything Octavia E. Butler
The Calculating Stars
The Three-Body Problem
The Handmaid's Tale
Frankenstein
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Grapes of Wrath
Homegoing
Pachinko
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

The people got it wrong (just the relatively recent reads):
Leviathan Wakes- the book was still better than the TV show.
River of Stars- Had high hopes for this after Tigana, but it was so meandering I lost interest in the character and plot about a quarter of the way in.
Children of Blood and Bone- Similar to Allison’s take, way too much YA nonsense.
A Court of Thorns and Roses- this was the only new book I had on my Kindle on a 4 day backpacking trip, so I muddled through, but it wasn’t pretty.
A Darker Shade of Magic- this was entirely forgettable for me, no emotional connection to the characters

I’d also be interested to know what people think on the other side of the coin of “the people got it wrong” aka “best book that no one knows about.” For me this is definitely The Way of Thorn and Thunder.

Aaaaah how could I have forgotten to mention the magnificent To Kill a Mockingbird? Thank you, Lesley, for reminding me of it! What a towering achievement that book is.

Thanks as well for reminding me that I also loved The Handmaid's Tale, which I read years ago. (Slightly off topic, I missed the novel’s mordantly black humor in the worthwhile but stiff Hulu adaptation.)

Lesley wrote: "The people got it right (mix of SFF, classics and contemporary that have stayed with me since reading):

The Broken Earth Trilogy
Farseer Trilogy
His Dark Materials Trilogy
Anything [author:Ursula ..."

Lesley, there's a thread for books that should be more popular here!

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Anthony wrote: "Aaaaah how could I have forgotten to mention the magnificent To Kill a Mockingbird?”

This is my favorite book of all time. I love it so much that I named my cat Atticus. Even Go Set a Watchman couldn’t spoil it for me.

I’m very much anticipating The Testaments, the sequel to Handmaid.

Edited to add: Thanks for the link to the other thread Allison!

Anthony wrote: "Aaaaah how could I have forgotten to mention the magnificent To Kill a Mockingbird? Thank you,
Lesley, for reminding me of it! What a towering achievement that book is.

Thanks as wel..."

Oh, shoot! Yes, those definitely deserve all the hype they got.

Talking about Margaret Atwood, I think that The Blind Assassin is also one people were right about. It moved me profoundly.

And I can't believe I forgot to mention The Power by Naomi Alderman. I remember exactly where I was when I started reading it.

Also, for a completely different genre: Emily Dickinson. I absolutely love her work.

I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 15 and I loved it. Still haven’t read Handmaids Tale. I’m not a big fan of non-fiction.....

Allison wrote: "Haha! Don't be sorry, everyone was RAVING about Traitor Baru.

I was also let down by

Children of Blood and Bone (it was every YA trope strung together! The part that was "differen..."

She’s also a tool IRL, so that doesn’t help. Talk about a garbage book that was overhyped.

Jacqueline wrote: "I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was 15 and I loved it. Still haven’t read Handmaids Tale. I’m not a big fan of non-fiction....."

Handmaids Tale is fiction...

I think that was social commentary, CBR :)

Ding ding ding....

sometimes I'm slow

;-(

Haha, internet makes it hard to tell tone :)

Allison wrote: "Haha, internet makes it hard to tell tone :)"

The time at the tone will be 1953.

I saw a cartoon on the net a couple of weeks ago where the librarian was moving Handmaids Tale, 1984 and many others from the fiction to the non-fiction section. It’s not wrong. So many of the dystopian futures that we see in books are becoming our present. Anyhoo.....back to Faefever and some horny faerie fluff. Probably also some sort of social commentary if you think about it but I prefer not to think about it too hard.

Loving this discussion!

The people got it WRONG:
A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin’s lazy work ethic really bothers me
The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss same reason as my disdain for George R.R. Martin
Muse of Nightmares - the first one was good, but what the heck was this?!?!
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman tried to reach for something deep...and fell on his face...🤦‍♂️
Anything Sarah J. Maas

The people got it RIGHT:
Illuminae - just plain fun to read
Divergent - great story telling - Veronica Roth is awesome!
The Hobbit or There and Back Again and The Lord of the Rings - Epic Fantasy Classics - ‘nuff said!
The Wishsong of Shannara - Terry Brooks has had a long and productive writing career. He is still publishing at least one book a year at 75 - eat that George R.R. Martin!
The Way of Kings - Wanted to added Brandon Sanderson to this list because I appreciate his work ethic. He produces great stories and works hard at his writing.

I expect some tomatoes to be thrown at me about A Game of Thrones but I just don’t get it! 🤷🏼‍♂️

Mareike wrote: "I love all of these responses and everyone's different takes on books. This is fascinating!"

Me too. And some of the wry comments have made me smile. I love all of these totally subjective opinions. Here are a few of mine - no offence intended to anyone!

They got it right:

The Martian
Ready Player One
Wool
Ursula Leguin - both Earthsea fantasy world and the Hainish sci-fi books - the allegorical The Telling is a fav of mine.
The Lord of the Rings
Remnant Population
Ender's Game (the book not the film. Eek!)
Revelation Space series
Great North Road
Reamde (OK it's not sci fi or fantasy)
The Stand
The Passage (book - I didn't watch the TV series)


They got it wrong:

Eragon Lame and derivative.
Kings of the Wyld The humorous trope got old pretty quickly.
Neil Gaiman - great writer, I’m sure, but just not for me
Terry Pratchett - same
The Dark Tower
Twilight
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Embassytown
Station Eleven

I’ve yet to tackle The Fifth Season. Hoping it lives up to the hype.
Same for The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and also We Are Legion.

I’ve tried The Three-Body Problem and didn’t finish, but want to give it another try.

A word about Neuromancer. I read it way back years ago and really liked it then. Yes, it was ahead of its time and it was, I believe, very influential in its day. But I imagine it feels very dated now. One thing Gibson didn’t foresee was the ubiquitousness of wireless connections. But at the time the book was an extraordinary achievement of imagination.

And am I the only one who has neither watched GoT or read any of the books? I may watch the series some time, but from what I hear, there may well be too much violence for moi. So, no tomatoes from me Matt.

You're not alone. I have negative interest in GoT. Seriously, you'd have to pay me to watch or read.

Allison wrote: "(Sorry Travis and other academics) I think Melville is full of crap.."

Nooooooo! Melville is where the people definitely got it right. How can you resist Queequeg and Ishmael lying in bed and sharing a pipe?

People got it right:

Ursula Le Guin
N.K. Jemisin
Robin Hobb (mostly)
Brandon Sanderson
Ada Palmer
And a whole catalog of Victorian and 19th C. American writers I'll leave unmentioned.

My and the people parted ways on:

The Wheel of Time (though I'm still thinking of reading summaries for a bunch of books in the middle and skipping ahead to the ones Sanderson wrote.
Malazan
The Night Circus
Dune
...and some others. ;)

Where it all went wrong:

Kings of the Wyld Am I reading the same book as everyone else?
A Song of Ice and Fire
Mistborn Trilogy Boxed Set Please don't hate me, but I've needed to get this off my chest for a long time!
The Earthsea Trilogy Scratching my head in befuddlement.
Queen of Fire
Darkfever
Any given Harry Turtledove book; he just gives waaaay to much information!
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen I love all of the Miles Vorkosigan books, but this didn't do anything for me.
The last Fitz & Fool trilogy by Robin Hobb. Ugh!


The Right Stuff:

The Name of the Wind Love, love, love this.
The Thief The whole series, really.
Blood Song Colossal! Stupendous! It's a shame the rest of the series sucked.
Dresden series by Jim Butcher
Strange the Dreamer And now I'm afraid to read the sequel due to Matt's comment!!
Wheel of Time series. I started reading these when they first came out; I'm no spring chicken.
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Wicked Day