oh yeah
all right
take it easy baby
make it last all night
“Well, she was an American girl… raised on promises…”
Still one of the greatest opening lines in all of rock and roll.
RIP Mr. Petty.
Agreed.
Dean Koontz.
True facts.
True facts.
She couldn’t help thinking that
There must be a bigger dick somewhere else
After all JMJ had a great big dick
And lots of jism running off it
Dudes are way more into wang size than ladies are.
And, for that matter, the fluids expressed therefrom.
Make with this knowledge what you will.
(Yeah, also I’ve read me some Laurell K Hamilton. It’s…pretty penisy.)
Yes; they are guilty in a different way.
The others I mentioned all feel like formulaic genre action. They have interest and I don’t feel bad for reading them but like a TV series that was good but carried on too long they have ended up as the mac and cheese of reading. Comforting because you know the like the characters but not pushing any real boundaries or trying anything new.
Which turns out to be an interesting thought to me because I’ve realized over the past few years that one of my biggest objections to narrative based ttrpgs is that I want my rpgs to be more of the plot driven comfort genre comfort food that narrative ttrpgs seem to be a reaction against.
Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson’s (mostly) horrible and endless Dune books. I’m now somewhere in the middle of the ‘Legends of Dune’ trilogy. I keep them on my Kindle so no one knows my sins.
Also, anything by Anne Rice. RIP, dear lady. Good God, that werewolf novel was beautiful trash.
Uh, all the protagonists in the American Girl books are 9-10 years old.
I can assure you that the sparks were flying in Changes for Kirsten, though, when their cabin burned down.
Deathlands serial by James Axler. Post apocalyptic, guns, mutants, babes. Read these a bunch in my younger years, I don’t think I’ve had a guilty pleasure author since - but occasionally check if new books are available on Kindle.
Edit: and I just learned all 126 are available on Kindle Unlimited. I probably read 20 or so previously, somewhere in the 50-70 range. Thinking I might start from scratch…
I believe James Axler is a shared pen name. As many of those 100+ book series tend to be.
The 1970s-1980s paperback versions of the old hero pulps:
Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, etc.
LitRPG isn’t so much a guilty pleasure as straight up junk food, which apparently I am addicted to. It’s garbage, I know it’s garbage, but I can’t stop reading it anyways.
It is very addictive.
A lot of genre fiction is…not good. I don’t care that much anymore. I read for enjoyment. If the writing is poor but the story has grabbed me, I start skimming.
LitRPG sort of has that Chick Parabola about it. The interesting part is learning about the game world or isekai setting, and learning about the gaming system being used. My interest begins to wane after I understand the fictional world and gaming system. I don’t seem to read more than a book or two in a series before I bail on it.
I’m pretty sure you are required to go to confession after saying something like this.
Yep, yep and yep. Even The Destroyer.
Terry Brooks.
I often hear him criticized as a Tolkein rip-off, and maybe he is, but I like his characters and his stories, and I enjoy his writing style.
Is he a guilty pleasure? Damn. I love me some Dresden.
If he qualifies, I’m also guilty. I really enjoyed his Magician series.
Honestly, not to me - I think he’s a solid artist. But I’ve seen others mentioned here I would have not considered the “guilty” sort of pleasure, so I’m probably the wrong guy to ask.