Books/authors that were better than you expected

[ramairthree]

I grabbed a paperback of the spinning rack of our little General store in my rural town when I was 9 years old or so.

It had a space ship on the cover and cost me a buck twenty five.
A princely sum that took over half my allowance and could have netted me about three comic books.

It was called For Texas and Zed by Zach Hughes.

The book was like a Heinlein juvenile, but with some adult details left in.

The library in my K-12 200 student school library or one horse town library had no other books by the author.
I re-read it again about twenty years later. It remains reminiscent of the work of the 40s and 50s pulps that I liked. Many authors from that genre went on to acclaim. But still no information on this one.

I was getting set up in a new home, etc recently and 20 years later again re-read the book. The world is different know and I have found that it is the pen name of a guy that churned out a hook or two a year straight to paperback from the late 60s to early 90s and pretty much died unknown last year.

[Firefly]

A Walk to Remember.

At first I thought it was going to be mushy puppy love tripe.

Now I regard it next to The King James Bible, Starship Troopers, and Atlas Shrugged

[just a scout]

Anything by John Ringo, Tom Kratman and Michael Z. Williamson.


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[wildcard600]

L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth. Yeah, sure Dianetic's and Scientology, dude was a nut, but I liked that series of books.

[26 Inf]

I'm a sport reader, I read to pass the time, generally quickly and with little long term retention. As a result, a year after I've read a book, if I pick it up and read it again it is like being reintroduced to an old friend. I have to work at reading for retention, forcing myself to go slower and mentally repeating the written words to myself.

Generally, if I don't like a book within the first couple pages I go on to something else.

When I was in the Marines I picked up a Louis L'Amour book and read it. It was formulaic, but the knowledge of what was going to transpire made reading it easy and, made the book easy to put down. I think I've read every Western novel and short story he wrote, don't care for his other short stories.

So I guess you could say I didn't expect much, but they grew on me.

I pretty much read anything John Sandford, Vince Harris, WEB Griffin, Stephen Coonts writes. I also read every non-fiction thing Clancy wrote. Red Storm Rising did not immediately hook me, but for some reason I slugged on and became engrossed in it.

In terms of a writer I would like to run down and kick her butt because she quit writing - Jamie Harrison. She wrote four books - The Edge of the Crazies, An Unfortunate Prairie Occurence, Going Local, and Blue Deer Thaw - and then freaking quit. I don't know who I hate more, her or Bill Watterson (who quit drawing/writing Calvin and Hobbes).

[Co-gnARR]

L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth. Yeah, sure Dianetic's and Scientology, dude was a nut, but I liked that series of books.

I too thought it would be a kook fest, but I enjoyed the first two books. After that I found other authors to read and dropped off the series.

My own contribution to the thread is Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer. I always heard he was great, but I really was moved by the story, especially considering the subject. No spoilers here, but it was a historical fiction- the lives of real life people as imagined by the author.

[wildcard600]

I too thought it would be a kook fest, but I enjoyed the first two books. After that I found other authors to read and dropped off the series.

Yeah alot of people shy away from Hubbard's work because he was a kook, but he had some talent as a writer. His Battlefield Earth was also excellent (just don't watch the movie) and if someone is only willing to read one of his books, BE should be it.

[Kain]

Mira Grant's Feed. It's a zombie book, but it really is a very well written book. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it still has its moments. Part of a trilogy, but honestly haven't taken the time to read the rest. But Feed is probably the best one I've ever read for the genre, hands down.

Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series are ****ing awesome though I expected just another run of the mill sci fi story it was pretty good. I mean, the writer is a gun guy, he has a sick sense of humor, and he is gun guy, he also has some a couple books in collaboration with John Ringo and they were awesome too so for all the Ringo fans there is that. Line from one of the more recent books, "You ever seen what happens to a gnome with you hit it with a 50bmg? You can't really. Not unless you have one of those photosonic cameras on the ****er when you do. In which case you are a very bad person." Worth a read. Some of the characters are pretty awesome too.

Other ones would the the Leandros novels by Rob Thurman. Lots of gun play and sarcasm and killing shit, and really one of my favorite series. Though I'll be honest, bought the first one because there was a guy on the cover with a katana. Probably the biggest one that was better than expected was the Jennifer Fallon Medallion Trilogy, first book started off pretty slow, like the first 150 pages were so slow I put it down, then ran out of stuff to read to decided to power through it. Finished the first one, then blew through the next two in like a 4 days. Really engaging once you got through the first third of the first book. Jim Butcher's Dresden series is pretty good took.

Honorable mention would be the EE Knight Vampire earth novels, some are pretty good, others pretty sucky in my opinion, but I know others who really liked them.

[uffdaphil]

I wasn't much into the Napoleonic era until I read the Sharpe's Rifles series by Bernard Cornwell. Formulaic, but you get to love the characters. (The Sean Bean tv shows are good too.) That sparked an interest in the naval side of that war. Picked up the first of the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O''brian and was just blown away. Stands alone as the best Age of Sail fiction ever written. I think there were 18 books. I liked Horatio Hornblower too, but it is a distant second.

1632 by Eric Flint is the gift that keeps on giving. A small town in W. Virginia transported to 17th century Germany is the premise and only element of science fiction. So far about 20 what-if novels with various authors and 71 volumes of the Grantville Gazette via online subscription.

[26 Inf]

Actually, I just thought of a book, actually books, that fits the bill - better than I expected.

My granddaughter had her first book published when she was a junior in high school, since then she has written two more. When she was younger she was always reading stuff that spooked me. She's my grand daughter, and I love her, so I always listened as she explained what she was reading and what it was all about.

When she published her first book and I got a copy I gulped and thought to myself, hey she will look forward to you talking with her about it and dove in. Read it straight through. If any of you have kids that might be interested in 'twisted fairy tales' give these a look:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show...onica_Ratzloff