That book looks old.

So I was looking at my Goodreads reading suggestions today (I'm behind on my arbitrary reading goal I set back in January and will meet my goal, just because I can) and was thinking about something I do when I look at book covers. If they have the older style of artwork and the older style of lettering, I don't give them a second look. I don't know why!

I may add, I'm skipping this series  until it's finished.

I have attempted to read some of these because I know they're popular books, but more often than not I get bored within a few hundred pages.

Do they just hit all of my nerves? I do get pissed off when I have to remember thirty names in the first two pages, worse if they're complex, or even worse, made up.

And then Peter turned to Victor, "Devereux will be made King at the equinox, unless Jun Ki can defeat him in the Challenge of Miculsuia, which is fought with nucsloia, which is just a fancy name for a sword, but I want to make it clear it's a special sword, and defeat the ilausnua."

If that paragraph appeared in a story it would be one thing, but I've run into books where they'll start off the first three chapters like that. It's just a turn off and I feel like I'm going to be working through a sea of names for the entire book.

My next guess is they are too cliché, I mean even the most traditional fantasy written today has some steampunk or magitek aspects. I get this feeling I won't see that in the older novels. They were trying to avoid the pioneers of that genre or so I assume.

It's all academic at this point anyway. I have plenty of things to read before I get to those, I just hope I'm not missing out.
-X