Who is your Guilty Pleasure Author?

Books, comics, TV, music
1

I just bought the new James Rollins thriller and whilst reading the description I was like “this is gonna be terrible in terms of sci-fi” and I bought it anyway b/c I kind of love the cheesiness even though I know it’s bad.

I’ve bought all of the Sigma Force books by Rollins even though many of them are not so good. From a standpoint of coherent plotline and thoughtful sci-fi thriller writing, they are… not. And yet I like them anyway.

I bet most of us have authors we read that we know are not really that good but we like them anyhow.

Who else wants to confess?

2

A lot of folks give Alan Dean Foster crap but I really like him. I loved the Flinx series and read all of the books I could get my hands on. So fun.

3

American Girl books. I’ve read almost all of them, my sister’s and now my daughter’s.

Fight me! I’ll be like Molly taking on the whole red team at camp.

4

Harry Turtledove, David Weber, Raymond Feist, and Dewey Lambdin have been guilty pleasures over the years but the biggest one is probably George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series.

5

Probably Clive Cussler. I bought several at a library sale and so every now and then when I just want to read and not think I pull one out.

6

There need be no guilt for such lofty literature!

7

Ken Follett, especially his Kingsbridge novels. You can see the template and feel the gears of the exact same plot happening every time. But still, it’s so well done that I can’t help but go all in on him.

I think it was Ken at Popehat who described him as “Pulp, but sublimely executed pulp.”

8

Dang, if this is sincere, this is the Qt3 Revelation of the Decade. Thank you, cornchip.

9

Dave Sim’s Cerebus comic books and commentary, especially as the years went on. I guess I have thinner skin versus his later stuff that, at its most gussied up, is transgressive and thought-provoking, and, at its worst, is drivel dribbled from a huuuge misanthropic dick.

Yet every few years I’ll do a big Cerebus reread or Google up his latest edicts and news reports. It’s often interesting; I just feel increasingly slimy afterwards.

10

Michael Stackpole, Randall Bills, Loren Coleman, and all the other legends who made the BATTLETECH universe a pleasure to dive into.

11

Holy shit. This lit up a neuron I didn’t know was still around. I also read my sister’s collection growing up!

12

I…I.think I kinda want to read American Girl books. Like seriously, that sounds fun as hell.

13

My oldest read pretty much every American Girl book we could get, 20 years ago.

14

American Girl as in the dolls? I didn’t know they had books. Oh man, that could have made for some great Christmas/birthday presents.

15

As a young Sharpe I greatly enjoyed the Nancy Drew and the Little House on the Prairie books. I read a lot of Nancy Drew back in the day, as in dozens of em.

16

Well, I have to confess I’ve read/listened to almost all of Dan Browns books (just missing the latest one). He isn’t very good, but there is a pulpy moreness to his writing, so its fun enough to get through.

17

This one is mine. I wrote a paragraph or two in the books thread about how all his works are exactly the same, but I’ll read (some) of them anyway.

18

Probably Jim Butcher for me - though I think he does great work, I can imagine others thinking of him as a guilty pleasure. I just finished the latest two Dresden books basically back to back and enjoyed the hell out of them. I cannot wait for the next one!

19

This is probably mine. They just give off a goofy National Treasure vibe I enjoy.

20

I can read all sorts of trash as long as it has a relatively competent flow of writing. Hey, at least I’m reading! I can’t handle most of the throwaway potboilers any more when they use clunky descriptions and tons of commas, but if the author has read On Writing and internalized half of it, I’ll stick around for a good action/fantasy/sci-fi romp.