[tspiteri]

I'm not going to debate the merits of Rand's philosophy in Atlas Shrugged, but as a novel, I found it horrible. I found that all the characters fall into one of two groups, those who agree with Rand's philosophy, and those who don't, and there is no credible character that disputes Rand's philosophy. There is also a lot of repetition, as if the novel is simply trying to indoctrinate the reader.

[mantas]

There were grey characters too. Dagny Taggart did not truly agree with Rand's philosophy.

In addition to that, Lord of the Rings must be terrible for the same reasons too. As well as most of the other popular books I can think of.

[tspiteri]

I cannot find a fundamental difference in the thought process of Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, Francisco d'Anconia, and the rest of that group. In fact, at the end of the novel, they all share a virtually identical philosophy, they all develop into Rand's ideal character. As for the other group, they are all greedy lazy parasites who want to do nothing productive and live off others.

One character, although not a major character, which did not seem to fall into those two groups and which seemed to have some development potential was Cherryl Brooks, but as soon as she had a conflict to resolve, Ayn Rand chose not to develop the character, took the easy way out, and had her commit suicide.