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Lessons From the Terrible Writing of Sword of Shannara, Chapter 1
Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara is a fantasy classic. I was warned it’s a Lord of the Rings copycat, but I knew nothing about the story or any of its characters. Naturally, I decided to read it – or...
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Lessons From the Terrible Writing of Eragon
I’ve never read Christopher Paolini’s Eragon before now, but I’ve heard it compared to both Star Wars and Harry Potter. I know I can expect a young male chosen one and (obviously) the dragon on the...
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Lessons From the Bad Writing of The Mortal Instruments
Sitting before me is City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, the first book in the bestselling Mortal Instruments series. I don’t know anything about the story, but I can see on the cover there’s a guy...
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Lessons From the Bad Writing of Battlefield Earth
I’m about to open Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, published in 1982. It’s by Ron L Hubbard, the guy who founded Scientology. On the cover, a muscled barbarian dude simultaneously fires two...
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Lessons From the Awkward Writing of The Sword of Truth
Wizard’s First Rule is the first book in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. It’s massive, bigger than any other paperback I own. On the cover, a guy beckons to a woman wearing a dress that is...
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Lessons From the Cinematic Writing of I Am Number Four
It’s time for I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore.1 The cover I have looks like it was made after the film adaptation. It has cinematic shots of three beautiful people staring intently out at me, a big...
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Lessons From the Fantastic Writing of The Martian
So far I’ve written six critiques of best selling books that I think are bad. Needless to say, I am not easily impressed. Then my commenters had the gall to ask for something positive. What do you...
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Lessons From the Confused Writing of Beyond Lies the Wub
We’ve had good fun examining the beginnings of popular works. But beginnings don’t exist in a vacuum; they set up for the middle and end. So this time we’ll look at an entire short story: Beyond Lies...
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Lessons From the Inconclusive Writing of The Doorway
Your expectations are already set too high. Since Chris is critiquing short stories on Mythcreants now, I figured I would copy pay homage to her posts and do a critique of my very own. So I searched...
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Lessons From the Vivid Writing of Lovecraft’s Dagon
Somehow I doubt this is the Dagon Lovecraft had in mind. Howard Phillips Lovecraft is a major influence on the cosmic horror genre, to the point that it’s often called Lovecraftian horror. The man had...
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Lessons From the Awful Writing of A Spell for Chameleon
I don't know what's happening here, but it looks way more interesting than anything I read. Stories are told in the halls of Mythcreants of the day Chris did battle with Eragon’s first chapter and...
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Lessons From Twilight vs Fifty Shades
We’ve dissected the first chapters of terrible novels and great ones.1 We’ve looked at entire short stories, and now I’ll kick it up a notch. I’m going to pit two books against each other in a battle...
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Lessons From the Sloppy Writing of The Tommyknockers
It’s time to tear apart The Tommyknockers, written by the venerable Stephen King and published in 1987. In his long and prolific history of writing, King has both gems and duds. Even within a work, his...
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Lessons From the Tedious Writing of The Disintegration Machine
Nearly everyone knows Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the author of Sherlock Holmes, but the good detective wasn’t Doyle’s only creation. Doyle was a prolific author, penning many tales outside the Holmes...
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Lessons From the Flat Writing of Tiger’s Curse
On the cover of Tiger’s Curse is a white tiger giving me an intense blue stare. I think it knows I’m about to critique its book, and it does not approve. Still, I can’t help but appreciate the tasteful...
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Lessons From the Rushed Writing of The Blade Itself
Gather round, ye speculative fiction fans. It is time for another critique post. Last time, I reached into spec fic’s distant past and dredged up A Spell for Chameleon, but today I take on a more...
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Lessons From the Rambling Writing of Handbook for Mortals
This cover was apparently plagiarized from a work by artist Gill Del-Mace.Last year, Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem cheated its way to the top of the New York Times YA bestseller list. It wasn’t #1...
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Lessons From the Hyped Writing of Dawn of Wonder
As soon as I spotted the cover for Jonathan Renshaw’s Dawn of Wonder, The Wakening, I knew this was the book to critique. “Dawn of Wonder” is already dramatic sounding, and adding “The Wakening” pushes...
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Lessons From the Terrible Writing of This Post
Mythcreants has numerous posts examining the terrible, awful, vivid, and even fantastic writing of various books and short stories. However, we’ve never analyzed this particular post, Lessons From the...
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Lessons From The Maze Runner’s Point of View Disaster
This post-apocalyptic YA novel by James Dashner spawned not only bestselling sequels but also a movie series. A bad movie series, I hear, but they star Dylan O’Brien (aka Styles), so how bad could they...
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