[opiate taylor]

I too almost put down TSotT when I first read it. I am glad I stuck in there. From what I have heard that's pretty typical for first time readers of Wolfe.

[Aztiel]

I have to chime in to defend Wolfe as well - he went a long way to convincing me to throw my lot in with the "defining literature is bull" crowd. The subtlety, the complexity. I read it and liked it, but I had already ordered a book called Solar Labyrinth, which is actually some academic's analysis of the Book of the New Sun.

http://www.amazon.com/Solar-Labyrinth-Expl...ref=pd_sim_b_33

I loved New Sun alone, but after reading this I found it even more amazing. It's hard to know if all this guys' interpretations are spot on, but if even some of them are right, then Wolfe's brain far surpasses my own. The biggest revelation for me in the entire thing is that when you're reading, it's really a game. Severian lies when he tells his story - the game is to try and figure out when he's lying. It set me up for SE's game, where you try to figure out who is who, and what is really going on behind the scenes.

If you feel like you should like Wolfe, but don't like the prose of New Sun, I would suggest the Long Sun series. It's very different, but still good, and I found it less difficult to read.

As for other horrible books, I couldn't get through the Runelords by David Farland - and Lustbader gets his own special level of hell for forming his horrible series. The even more horrible thing about Lustbader is that he's now taken over for the dead Robert Ludlum and is continuing the Bourne Identity series. Sacrilege.

This post has been edited by Aztiel: 13 October 2008 - 01:56 AM

[Terez]

I think RJ is awesome, even Crossroads of Twilight, and American Gods was awesome too. And I even prefer Eddings to Feist. I don't get why people like Feist - his characters and storytelling were very dusty to me. Good story, but horrible telling of it.

[blueoccult]

What's you guy's problem with Robert Jordan? Wheel of Time is a great series, and in my opinion, Stephen R. Donaldson is a rather poor author. Two other authors that aren't very good is Ann Bishop and Piers Anthony (though I do enjoy some of Anthony's books, his writing style is just...bad)

[Terez]

I'll probably be told I"m a biased fangirl, but I think most people's problem with RJ is that it took forever for each book to come out, and with the later books, there was less action, and more in the way of hint-dropping. RJ did that, I think, for his hard-core fans. He hardly needed to do it for the money, because he already had plans for a new series. But he realized around Lord of Chaos that his hard-core fans really got off on the mystery aspect of his books, and he's said in interviews that he stepped it up a notch or two as far as hint-dropping goes in the books after that.

I've heard a lot of reasons why people don't like the later books: Faile's kidnapping was drawn out, and people got frustrated because they expected it to be resolved in Winter's Heart, and then in Crossroads of Twilight, and it was resolved in neither - RJ used that plotline to build Perrin's character, and though I think he did an awesome job of it, lots of people disagree. Mat wasn't in The Path of Daggers at all, and that pissed off a lot of people. Elayne's group was on the boring side in the beginning of The Path of Daggers, also (not so much as the book went on), but a lot of people were bored with her plotline in general, from A Crown of Swords onward. Rand had less screen time after Lord of Chaos, and almost none in Crossroads of Twilight, and that bothers some people (not me - I appreciate an author who can stay away from his main character for more than a chapter or two, which is one of the reasons I like SE - he stays away from his main character so much that most fans would tell you he doesn't have one, lol).

[Macros]

My main gripe with RJ is the pointless protracted nature of the series. That and out of the millions of women on the world, only Min seems sem i reasonable, the rest are all maniacal bitches who cross their arms and have a fetish for nicley formed calves.

[lord of tragedy]

your right terez some of jordan's work was deeply admirable . especially having the courage to leave rand to one side for a whole book.

tug my braid! some of it however was really really bad. i admire jordans early work and his work is not the worst, nor does it deserve a mention on this list but you have to admit some of it was a bit twee.

[Terez]

No I don't. I like all of it. The braid-tugging and all is caricature, so I have no problem with it.

[lord of tragedy]

it is too easily carricatured. i wish south park would do a wheel of time episode.

[Serakus]

I personally started out on Lord of the Rings.

I then pretty quickly picked up Eddings, and enjoyed the Belgariad.

I read the entire series of the Drizzt books by Salvatore.
I've read dozens of fantasy books that I've forgotten the plots to, and more than a few series here and there.

I'm halfway through Toll the Hounds.


I've spent alot of time trying to figure out how I feel about modern fantasy. One of the key points I want to raise to you folks is this...

Keep in mind the age of the book or series. Many of these authors were writing when there wasn't quite so much market saturation, alot of folks like myself cut their teeth on Tolkien, we then went on to find most of the industry lacking his talent, but being a bit more "readable". We got used to it, and accepted it at the time. Now after reading Erikson, it is difficult to even compare some of that other work.

Everything in life suffers from advancement, as incredible as our achievements can be, we are always dwarfing and destroying previous masterpieces. I've seen people even on this board try to say Tolkien is shit. I get red in the face when people say that, because the fact is, he wrote LOTR when fantasy was not a "genre", he and a few other pioneers in the field really established the genre for what it is, and we can thank them for our passion today. Does that mean that the older work of that time is a bit tiresome, even perhaps technically a "bad" read? Sure, but sometimes you have to look beyond the restraints and appreciate the story. Also remember taste is all relative, if you look up Erikson on the amazon.com reviews theres almost as many bomb reviews as good ones. Erikson, by some standards would be considered a "bad writer", he tends to jump around the narrative alot, he tends to use characters like a child uses his toy soliders, his favorites rarely die, and he tends to pick up the right ones at the right time. Personally that is half the appeal for me, I love reading Erikson for the incredibly complex background, the cast of characters and his ability to tie storylines together and bring things together that I never saw comming. Keep in mind some folks see that as horrible manipulation on the part of the author.

Anyways in conclusion, just asking you all the keep in mind that half of what we find to be "bad" today was the best stuff availible at the time.

And for the record....J.K. Rowling is complete shit and will be responsible for a legion of horrible authors....oh wait...she already is....

This post has been edited by Serakus: 13 October 2008 - 09:02 PM

[Serakus]

In regards to folks who mentioned David Farland, The Runelords....

Is it just me or did he invent perhaps one of the most amazing systems of magic in modern fantasy, filling it with so much room for story and excitement, only to completely undermine the entire thing with no self control? He upped the endowment level way too far way too fast, took all of the awe I had of Raj Ahten away the moment Gaborn's father went loose...I really thought the idea of endowments and the repurcussions of the power/repsonsibility to the givers of the power was so full of character and potential. Once the series switched focus to the reavers, I was largely just annoyed. You present the problem of thousands of creatures with a largely hive mind and then you make it so that it takes numerous runelords to even combat one at a time. How can you develop god like heroes and then develop an entire race of creatures that make them look like children. I call it bad power management.

Fantasy is one of the few genres where you can have a major issue in writers....what separates a good author from a good storyteller...or a decent writer.
What I mean is, a good author can write somehting that is readable, enjoyable and in the end very respectable.
A good storyteller can build a world, populate it with interesting people, cultures, events, you name it.
Very rarely do you see the two combined in a single author. Erikson is one of them, Farland was not. You see this issue most commonly in game developers, any D&D fans/ex-fans can probably attest, the people who have made gaming products over the years have done an amazing job in developing interesting worlds to interact with, but when a company hands them a book deal....they write complete garbage. Better yet, when there is an established setting, they hand it off to folks who have no real investment in the material, and they also write absolute garbage.

[lord of tragedy]

that got quite bitter there at the end serakus. have you woken to find your most trusted fantasy author sleazily trying to take advantage of you by pawning his world building off so his mate can get make a few quid out of your naievety? care to mention names?

how old were you when you read runelords?

[Raven King]

The Iron Tower by Dennis L McKiernan. A complete ripoff of LOTR. And those Eragon books. Can't believe I use to read them.

[Terez]

Oh yeah, I forgot Eragon. On purpose. I didn't read any of the sequels. Also on purpose...

[Macros]

i think the third book of the eldest series is out now.
I have no intention of reading it after the travesty that was books one and two.

Runelords blew. <---that is a fullstop

[Terez]

wtf did you read book 2 for Macros?

[Terez]

Only twice? Amazing...

[Macros]

sister is a moron and bought both of them on a friends recomendation. forced myself through book one. then in a fit of madness and boredom oneday convinced myself book 2 had to be better as he wrote it later and bla de bla.
I was wrong, it was worse.
I refuse to put myself through the torture a third time, even if my sister pays me to read it.

[Serakus]

lord of tragedy, on Oct 13 2008, 06:12 PM, said:

that got quite bitter there at the end serakus. have you woken to find your most trusted fantasy author sleazily trying to take advantage of you by pawning his world building off so his mate can get make a few quid out of your naievety? care to mention names?

how old were you when you read runelords?

I read The Runelords when it came on in hardcover, so I was around 15 at the time. Wow, I can't believe its been almost ten years...


Almost anything written for the Dungeons and Dragons settings is absolute trash. Very few good authors who can meet the needs of WotC.

Salvatore being the exception to this rule, however is is a bit predictable at points. I still mostly appreciate his internal dialogues with Artemis Entreri/Jarlaxle and Drizzt.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Gem Windcaster, on Oct 4 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

If it only was a case of simply writing crap, I'd not be so upset - but Eddings purposefully slaughters the whole series in a single act of insanity - the only thing that made sense he just revoked. I am still trembling of the pure shock and horror - someone that does that kind of thing to his own creation should buried alive, like the dude Belgarath put deep into the rock in the Belgariad, to take an example from his own series. I seriously loathe Eddings after reading that ending in Tamuli - it was so wrong on so many levels.

What was the ending to the Tamuli? I don't even remember. Might have repressed it.