"Tom Clancy don't need no stinkin' Editor " Topic

The more successful an author gets, the harder it becomes to not crank out 1200 page tomes.
How many "trilogies" have you seen where Book One has 600 pages, and by the time it gets to Volume 5 there are 1200 pages?

By this time, the only function of the book editor is to keep the spelling consistent. No one can tell a "successful" writer that he/she needs to cut 200 pages. "Do you know who you are talking to???"

I nominate Tom Clancy, of course. Hunt for Red October was NOT a bloated mess. The Bear and the Dragon? Decidedly so.

So…
What authors would you nominate for the Tom Clancy Don't Need No Stinkin' Editor Award?

Too bad I can't cross-post to Polls. 8^)

You were able to finish The Bear and the Dragon? Better than my three attempts.
How about George R.R. Martin?

Stephen King

Carrie ~250pp

The Stand ~1400pp

Tolkien.

I love the man's work, but Bombadil needed to go.

There's an interesting quote in the bio from the extended LotR DVDs. I can't recall the speaker, but the quote was, "One did not edit Tolkien."
Being the Merlon Professor of English Literature and Language at Oxford tended to give Tolkien an intimidation factor that I doubt many editors could have stood up against. It would have taken a brave man to tell Tolkien he didn't know what he was writing.

The hack from Wheel of Time fantasy series – not just extra pages in a book but extra books as well. Of course books sell and pages cost, so that may have been editors bowing to marketing.

OFM – there are SOOOOOO MANY ! Y' want 'em in
alphabetical order, chronological order, or what ????

BTW, most of Clancy after _Red Storm Rising_ ain't worth
the effort (_ Without Remorse_, a notable exception,
although the book could use signifcant blue-penciling…)

Toliken
Rowling.

I'm going to work now.
Enjoy yourselves and play nice.

The whole logarhea crowd, really. In SF&F that starts with Eddings and Brooks, moves to Jordan, Rowling, Goodkind, Gear, Gentle, later Feist, and a few others. I could add to the list by taking a quick look at the bookstore shelves.

I don't read a lot of "General Fiction" written after I was born because it hits Sturgeon's Law with a vengeance, but Barker and King come to mind, as does Clancy. Some of these are misplaced SF&F, of course, but that's another rant for another post.

And Patricia Cornwell. Not because she writes massively inflated tomes, but because Kay Scarpetta es me off mightily. Every book someone's gunning for Kay and I'm cheering them on.

Ditto Kathy Reichs.

*ahem* sorry, that should have gone on 'Ranting'

Harry Turtledove He takes one story such as the South Winning the Civil War and adrags it out to an 11 book marathon.

Is stephen king still writing books ?

I thought they were novelty house bricks – build a room that looks like a library kind of idea….

Of course King is still writing, he's never finished a story yet. They just seem to peter out and bleed into the next one.

I much prefer King and Barker in short story mode…
To my mind most horror novels would work better as short stories… but anthologies of shorter works don't seem to sell well.

The first author where I spotted this problem was Alastair MacLean – his last few books were terrible (not particularly long, just weak).

David Webber is a classic example, certainly.

David Weber, definitely.

Edit out the 6-page internal dialogs which occur between the detection of the enemy launching missiles, and the first counter-measures firing, PLEASE!

Terry Pratchett's books have doubled in size over time, but in a good way!

Weber is the name that jumps to mind. The Honor Harrington stuff has gotten way too bloated with all the internal references back to events from the previous books.

I think the last two books of the Harry Potter saga suffered from the syndrome you mention.

Len Deighton

writes book, sends it in, they print it, muppets buy them regardless.

My dad is a literate chap and he is CERTAIN that Deighton is in fact two authors – one, who writes in Deighton Style'a' and is good, and the other who uses a completely different style and is .

Pat

The hack from Wheel of Time fantasy series – not just extra pages in a book but extra books as well.

Robert Jordan, I would go with him as well. Series started out well enough but just kept getting more complicated and adding more characters (kind of like the Heroes tv show). Here's a hint: when a 1000+ page book only spends a chapter or two on each person/place, there are too many characters! I never bought the last two books he wrote, then he died and his son said there will be 2-3 more books to finish the story, I gave up.

Hey, didn't you know. We've got the internet now! ANYONE can be an author. We don't need no 'elites' telling us how to do it.