Stories You Abandoned

[San-Silvacian]

I thought this was about stories that you've written that you've abandoned.

Done that a few times.

I abandoned Harry Potter after the 3rd or something book.

[Hugora]

I thought this was about stories that you've written that you've abandoned.

Done that a few times.

Same here, Person-With-The-Same-Flag-As-Me.

[Constaniana]

The little engine that could. Truth be told, I can't read. I'm holding out for the film.

Thomas the Tank engine is way better. Not that lame CGI junk, I'm talking the classics written by the Reverend himself! And the episodes with RINGO STARR NARRATING THEM!

[Wisconsin9]

I thought this was about stories that you've written that you've abandoned.

Done that a few times.

I abandoned Harry Potter after the 3rd or something book.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I sort of abandoned the Star Wars EU Series. They should have just ended with the damn Vong. But noooooooooo, they had to make a series with the stupid hive-mind Borg ripoffs and ANOTHER series with that smarmy asshole Jacen

turning evil

, and YET ANOTHER series on top of that. It's just too damn much to take.

Extended Universe is the NS of the writing world: everyone gets to contribute, so there's no guarantee of quality. I lost interest when the Civil War ended (because what the hell was the point of continuing it?). Second Civil War was good, even if the whole Jacen business was kind of out-of-nowhere. Or maybe it wasn't, I guess you had to the Vong series to understand it (nope!).

I abandoned the Act of War PC strategy series (which I loved) because of their shitty programming not being able to run on computers with more than one core. Hilarious!

Aww, Act of War Direct Action continues to stand out as the only game I can think of where you could actively take prisoners and it will always have a place in my heart for that . I never got to play the second one, but the naval combat looked exciting.

As to EU stuff, I agree completely. I'd say that for EU works, about 20% of them - if that - are objectively high-quality, interesting stories, like the Thrawn books, Rogue/Wraith Squadron (which gave me a huge amount of inspiration for the Excalibur Squadron RP I'm doing now), and some of the Vong books (among a few others). About 50% of it is stuff that is acceptable to pretty good - stuff that'll work in a pinch, and expands the universe without being too stupid. The other 30% is just unacceptable, uncreative, lazy, poorly written shit - like the Yevetha series, anything Karen Traviss wrote past the 2nd Republic Commando novel, Dark Empire, a great deal of the Legacy series, most of the mid-90s stuff... it's just a void. Very annoying.

And Act of War utterly rocked. Taking prisoners was awesome. So was spamming helicopter assaults on rooftops to take out enemy strongpoints. I could re-enact Black Hawk Down pretty accurately in the San Francisco mission. Never played the 2nd one, because I didn't want to disable a huge part of my computer's functionality for its sake. If only they released a patch...

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I sort of abandoned the Star Wars EU Series. They should have just ended with the damn Vong. But noooooooooo, they had to make a series with the stupid hive-mind Borg ripoffs and ANOTHER series with that smarmy asshole Jacen

turning evil

, and YET ANOTHER series on top of that. It's just too damn much to take.

You should still read the Darth Bane Trilogy. It was flippin awesome.

I read the first book in that trilogy, where the whole thing was essentially a comic retcon. It was pretty good. Admittedly, I did read it right at the tail-end of my EU interest. I may get around to it someday.

Now that I think about it, I also basically abandoned the Modern Warfare story, but so did IW, so no reason to feel bad.

[San-Silvacian]

I thought this was about stories that you've written that you've abandoned.

Done that a few times.

I abandoned Harry Potter after the 3rd or something book.

Yup.

Sorta lost its appeal to me after that. Stephen King was much better. I didn't have to wait forever for the prick to die in those books.

[Meritocratic States]

I gave up on this Japanese visual novel called Brass Restoration. I think reading through a story with that has multiple endings based on your choices and doing it over and over again to get the different outcomes has lost its appeal to me.

[Wisconsin9]

Yup.

Sorta lost its appeal to me after that. Stephen King was much better. I didn't have to wait forever for the prick to die in those books.

Stephen King is indeed the most boss writer I can think of. The only reason I haven't finished the Dark Tower books is because I owe the library thirty dollars.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

I tried to emulate some sort of sci-fi when i was younger and on holiday. (it was a really boring holiday).
I had no idea what i was doing. it's now lost in the mists of time.

[Hugora]

As to EU stuff, I agree completely. I'd say that for EU works, about 20% of them - if that - are objectively high-quality, interesting stories, like the Thrawn books, Rogue/Wraith Squadron (which gave me a huge amount of inspiration for the Excalibur Squadron RP I'm doing now), and some of the Vong books (among a few others). About 50% of it is stuff that is acceptable to pretty good - stuff that'll work in a pinch, and expands the universe without being too stupid. The other 30% is just unacceptable, uncreative, lazy, poorly written shit - like the Yevetha series, anything Karen Traviss wrote past the 2nd Republic Commando novel, Dark Empire, a great deal of the Legacy series, most of the mid-90s stuff... it's just a void. Very annoying.

I actually liked the Yevetha storyline, mainly because it was interesting to watch the New Republic squirm while Nil Spaar messed with them and he's the only person to get the drop on Han Solo besides Darth Vader.

[Retro Lyra]

I abandoned Animorphs when I was younger (a book series) because of Rachel. I hated that bitch. She did everything right, was perfect, the best morpher, the team's leader was in love with her, always knew just what to do, and anyone who didn't listen to her ended up dead or injured.

Believe me, you didn't miss much. I didn't manage to find all the books, but when I found the last one it made me wish I'd never heard of the series.

What happened? I hear everyone (except Rachel, of course) dies.

And you cannot deny that the little bitch was a Mary Sue. In an interview, the author even said at one point that Rachel was a self insert of the author herself, always a recipe for disaster.

The little engine that could. Truth be told, I can't read. I'm holding out for the film.

[Wisconsin9]

Believe me, you didn't miss much. I didn't manage to find all the books, but when I found the last one it made me wish I'd never heard of the series.

What happened? I hear everyone (except Rachel, of course) dies.

Actually Rachel died in the first ten pages, after taking down half the rogue Yeerks on the Blade ship, including Tom. The good guys won, the Andalites came about ten seconds from burning Earth to a crisp, Visser Three (Visser One at that point) was thrown in prison for the rest of his life. Cut to a couple years later, Ax goes missing, Jake and the others (excluding Cassie) steal an experimental Z-Space ship and go off to search for him. Eventually, they find the Blade Ship, which has Ax on board taken over by some alien thing. Jake gives orders to ram the Blade Ship and kill everyone. The book ends just before they die.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

As to EU stuff, I agree completely. I'd say that for EU works, about 20% of them - if that - are objectively high-quality, interesting stories, like the Thrawn books, Rogue/Wraith Squadron (which gave me a huge amount of inspiration for the Excalibur Squadron RP I'm doing now), and some of the Vong books (among a few others). About 50% of it is stuff that is acceptable to pretty good - stuff that'll work in a pinch, and expands the universe without being too stupid. The other 30% is just unacceptable, uncreative, lazy, poorly written shit - like the Yevetha series, anything Karen Traviss wrote past the 2nd Republic Commando novel, Dark Empire, a great deal of the Legacy series, most of the mid-90s stuff... it's just a void. Very annoying.

I actually liked the Yevetha storyline, mainly because it was interesting to watch the New Republic squirm while Nil Spaar messed with them and he's the only person to get the drop on Han Solo besides Darth Vader.

The A plotline (the Yevetha stuff) was an OK story idea, if a bit contrived, with that huge Imperial fleet just left there in Koornacht. The B plot (Luke abortively searching for his mom) and the C plot(Lando/3P0/Lobot/R2 exploring an ancient ship) veered from utterly irrelevant padding(the Lando stuff) to annoying, boring and really kinda dishonest (the Luke stuff). The Luke plotline annoys the crap out of me especially, because one of two things had to happen there:
a) The author had to have known that they couldn't talk about Luke and Leia's mom in the EU, as that was forbidden territory for a potential prequel trilogy. Thus, the whole draw of the plotline was inherently dishonest and exploitative, and just a way to get Luke out of the plot and a way to pad the book. It's not like introducing the Fallanassi added much in itself, except maybe a deus ex machina ending that wasn't even really needed.
Or b) The author was so monumentally sloppy, he only realized halfway through the plotline that he couldn't touch the subject of Anakin's baby momma, and so had to inject a crappy copout ending into the third book. That's not much better.
Not to mention Kube-McDowell's writing style is infuriating. Case in point: he had us follow two New Republic fighter pilots (Tuketu and his copilot) through three books, and then completely abandons them after the Big Thing happens in the Big Fight in the third book. What happened to them? Did they live? Who knows? Very annoying.
I'm a fanboy, if you can't tell.

[Squatchy Land]

I got to about page 90 or so of The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and just couldn't take it anymore.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

oops i misread the title.

I got to about page 90 or so of The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien and just couldn't take it anymore.

i know what you mean.

[Squatchy Land]

In the book A Game of Thrones I got about a bit over 400 pages through and stopped reading. Except it was for other reasons than not enjoying it. I had been watching the T.V. show and had made a promise to myself, that I wouldn't watch ahead of where I was in the book. Well, I didn't keep that promise and it sort of ruined the book for me. At least until I forget about the plot enough.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

In the book A Game of Thrones I got about a bit over 400 pages through and stopped reading. Except it was for other reasons than not enjoying it. I had been watching the T.V. show and had made a promise to myself, that I wouldn't watch ahead of where I was in the book. Well, I didn't keep that promise and it sort of ruined the book for me. At least until I forget about the plot enough.

I got through game of thrones books, right up till feast for the crows. then ragequit. Really pissed about that one.

[Squatchy Land]

In the book A Game of Thrones I got about a bit over 400 pages through and stopped reading. Except it was for other reasons than not enjoying it. I had been watching the T.V. show and had made a promise to myself, that I wouldn't watch ahead of where I was in the book. Well, I didn't keep that promise and it sort of ruined the book for me. At least until I forget about the plot enough.

I got through game of thrones books, right up till feast for the crows. then ragequit. Really pissed about that one.

Yeah, I've heard quite a few negative things about A Feast for Crows. Is it mostly that George R.R. Martin decided to split the plot of that book and A Dance with Dragons into regions and not part of a timeline? So certain characters were left out of certain books? From what I heard the 4th book and 5th happened around the same time in the plot.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

I got through game of thrones books, right up till feast for the crows. then ragequit. Really pissed about that one.

Yeah, I've heard quite a few negative things about A Feast for Crows. Is it mostly that George R.R. Martin decided to split the plot of that book and A Dance with Dragons into regions and not part of a timeline? So certain characters were left out of certain books? From what I heard the 4th book and 5th happened around the same time in the plot.

I'm not sure, it's possible. I know he had to split it with a couple of previous ones. It was just the writing was so dull, mind numbingly dull. Like all the characters were just trying to walk through a muddy field backwards or something. Nothing actually happened. So weird considering the previous ones were pretty good for the most part.

[Squatchy Land]

Yeah, I've heard quite a few negative things about A Feast for Crows. Is it mostly that George R.R. Martin decided to split the plot of that book and A Dance with Dragons into regions and not part of a timeline? So certain characters were left out of certain books? From what I heard the 4th book and 5th happened around the same time in the plot.

I'm not sure, it's possible. I know he had to split it with a couple of previous ones. It was just the writing was so dull, mind numbingly dull. Like all the characters were just trying to walk through a muddy field backwards or something. Nothing actually happened. So weird considering the previous ones were pretty good for the most part.

That's too bad. Well I haven't seen the second season of Game of Thrones yet, but I've heard some of it's pretty graphic. More than the first season at least. Anyways, I don't think I'll ever abandon the T.V. show. At least not for a while.

[Immoren]

I abandoned Animorphs when I was younger (a book series) because of Rachel. I hated that bitch. She did everything right, was perfect, the best morpher, the team's leader was in love with her, always knew just what to do, and anyone who didn't listen to her ended up dead or injured.

I dropped all Applegate's series, because local library didn't acquire them fast enough to keep my interests.

[Shadyrya]

I abandoned Animorphs when I was younger (a book series) because of Rachel. I hated that bitch. She did everything right, was perfect, the best morpher, the team's leader was in love with her, always knew just what to do, and anyone who didn't listen to her ended up dead or injured.

So true. Fucking Rachel.

[Anollasia]

I abandoned The Series Of Unfortunate Events, at the 7th book, I think.
''Titanic'' by Gordon Korman, on the 5th page.
''Around the World In 80 Days'' I know it's a classic, but I wasn't in the mood for reading it, at the time.

[Britannic Realms]

I stopped watching Harry Potter after the second one because I developed a hatred for fantasy.
I've also abandoned Thunderball half-way through and read two other books.