[globish rip]

just finished the newest one (shadows of the apt) & the more his books resemble scripts for a tv series the more i end up liking them. like whoever said he bends the characters to the plot is right but i think - world building aside - the highly structured storytelling is his biggest asset as a writer. i mean the whole series is really p slight but i think it would be worse if it was "better"

also there was a pleasing amount of blood on the floor @ the end of this book so

[Roland_85]

My takes on books 1 and 2:

Quote

Empire in Black and Gold

[...]

Empire in Black and Gold is a great sword and sorcery adventure set in a New Weird/Steampunk world that sometimes resembles Ancient Greece, and sometimes - classical pseudo-medieval fantasy. World-building is one of Tchaikovsky's strongest points. From the mechanical factories and forges of dirty crime-ridden Helleron to the shadowy streets of conquered Myna, to the mountaintop holds of the Moth-kinden, the world of The Shadows of the Apt is fleshed-out and intriguing, while still making it clear that we haven't seen even a tenth of it.

The race concept is also one of the best I've seen in years. Even though there isn't one non-human race in Tchaikovsky's world, it is still filled with humans more fantastic than any classical fantasy race. No elf could hold a candle to the shadow-dwelling Moth-kinden sorcerers, or their daylight brothers, the enchanting Butterfly-kinden. What's more, it is a world where it is normal for any human with a flying kindred-insect to be able to fly himself, even though Beetles are notoriously bad at it while the little Fly-kinden are the best fliers in the world. That makes for some pretty spectacular aerial battles in addition to the amazing ground action.

The characters are also very well thought out. Even if they are somewhat two-dimensional - with most of them you know where you stand from the beginning - there is a lot of thought put into their actions and behavior. I like imagining better versions of situations with intense dialogue - it's just the way I'm wired. It's not rare that an author makes their characters act or speak stupidly for the purpose of plot-movement. Not so here. I was really impressed when Che - a mousy little creature of middling talents for the most part - stood up to a Wasp officer interrogating her with the following (I rephrase obviously): "Why won't you just let it go and let me leave? I know nothing. I am just a student that has been thrust into something monstrous. What threat could I be to your Empire?" What's more, this conversation did have impact on the story later on. Kudos to Tchaikovsky for being able to make his characters behave convincingly without the story suffering for it!

What Empire in Black and Gold isn't so good at is the pacing of the story. It takes more than a hundred pages to actually get going, and then sort of stumbles in many directions at once, not really getting to the point until the very end. That is not to say the novel is boring. Even if we forget the amazing world-building, the book is still packed with action and adventure. It is just a bit aimless for a while, but I guess that's ok for the first of four parts.

[...]

Quote

Dragonfly Falling

[...]

Dragonfly Falling centers around the Empire's first push into the Lowlands and has no distinct beginning or end. At the same time, there is significant plot-development and a lot of characters end up in a place drastically different than the one they started in. Especially Totho and Thalric see a lot of change, although the latter has considerably less "screen time" than in the first book, which I consider a loss as the Wasp agent was my favorite character in Empire in Black and Gold. The element of magic from the Age of Lore is more powerful here, and promises to get ever more important in further installments. The steampunk side is also on the rise, as newer and more powerful engines of war are developed in the service of conquest as well as defense.

What I particularly liked about the book was the way it focuses on different kinden. In the first part we were given a distinct view of the Beetles and to a lesser extent the Moths. Beetles' artifice is not extremely interesting as a quality though, and Moths' appeal lies in their mystery. In Dragonfly Falling the center-stage is reserved for the Ants, and those are truly amazing. With their shared mind and unwavering discipline, Ant-kinden are extremely fascinating and Tchaikovsky even gives us a few Ant PoVs to truly experience what it is to be a part of one consciousness. The book also offers a short glance at the splendor and machinations of Spider-kinden Aristoi from the Spiderlands, and especially in the clash between an Aristos and a Wasp general the multitude of ways in which their cunning and web-spinning are manifested are a joy to read.

Still, the quantity of battles gets a little tiring at a certain point and Dragonfly Falling could easily have been around fifty or sixty pages shorter without losing anything. The constant shifting between places gets a bit annoying too, but to Tchaikovsky's credit, he rarely makes you wait long to see how your particular favorite story-line progresses.

His style has improved as well, and the book reads a lot more smoothly than the previous one. Possibly due to the point that the plot has reached, there are no slow places at all, and events just pile one after another. Tchaikovsky's habit of switching PoVs in the middle of a paragraph is still present though, and I really hope he gets rid of that, since it's really aggravating to read a conversation from the point of view of one side, and suddenly realize you're now looking through the eyes of the opposite one, even though it's almost the same sentence. Dialogues themselves also suffer a little in comparison to Empire in Black and Gold, as moments of true realism and heartfelt connection (as those between Che and Thalric in the first book) are noticeably absent.

[...]

[Morgoth]

it would seem we're not entirely in agreement as to the quality of these books.

The fact that some people seem to not only find the prose pleasant, but also the characterizations well done, tells me that there's a clear lack of quality in modern fantasy.

[QuickTidal]

Morgoth, on 09 August 2010 - 09:59 PM, said:

it would seem we're not entirely in agreement as to the quality of these books.

The fact that some people seem to not only find the prose pleasant, but also the characterizations well done, tells me that there's a clear lack of quality in modern fantasy.

Agreed. It actually took me half the first book to realize how poor both are. Sigh. I felt like a dunce.

[Roland_85]

Yeah, really, today's fantasy can't hold a candle to the flowing elegance of David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan, not to mention their deep and multilayered characters. And silly me for liking a character who actually has the brain to tell the bad guy "dude, I'm some random girl, what do you even want with me?" and thinking it's a pleasant change to not fall into the trap of fantasy cliche dialogue...

[Morgoth]

Roland_85, on 10 August 2010 - 06:10 AM, said:

Yeah, really, today's fantasy can't hold a candle to the flowing elegance of David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan, not to mention their deep and multilayered characters. And silly me for liking a character who actually has the brain to tell the bad guy "dude, I'm some random girl, what do you even want with me?" and thinking it's a pleasant change to not fall into the trap of fantasy cliche dialogue...

I can't say I found that line all that inspiring, nor do I think one line of good writing (if that is what this is) is capable of redeeming a series of five books.

As for Jordan, Eddings, Tairy and Brooks, I don't think anyone would consider those (apart perhaps from Jordan with some) to be masters of prose and characterization. Now, yes they are in fact older writers. Well done.

I remember I read an old book once. It sucked. Because of that I only ever read books written after 1997. To be sure of quality you know.

[Roland_85]

Your sarcasm is misplaced, as it was you who started with the "today's youth" line of thought. I read books from every period of the genre, and always have. It's just that I find it hilarious that people are pining for the "good old" when we now have more good fantasy novels than at ANY other time the genre has existed as such.

Also, that "one line" was an example, not an exception.

[Use Of Weapons]

We may have more good fantasy now than at any other time, but I would argue that that is only due to the size of the market, and not due to any increase in quality as a percentage of the whole. Sturgeons law still applies -- even more so in these days of self-published drek and Stephanie Meyer.

[Roland_85]

We're not talking about the reason though, just the result.

[QuickTidal]

Roland_85, on 10 August 2010 - 01:33 PM, said:

Your sarcasm is misplaced,

I don't know why, but this made me chuckle. How very masterpiece theatre of you. You stopped short of calling him a blackguard and a poppinjay.

[Morgoth]

Roland_85, on 10 August 2010 - 01:33 PM, said:

Your sarcasm is misplaced, as it was you who started with the "today's youth" line of thought. I read books from every period of the genre, and always have. It's just that I find it hilarious that people are pining for the "good old" when we now have more good fantasy novels than at ANY other time the genre has existed as such.

Also, that "one line" was an example, not an exception.

My sarcasm is hardly misplaced when the essence of your post was comparable to say someone mentioning this decade as a highlight of literature and receiving a "but Dan Brown sucks and he wrote in this decade" sort of response.

We certainly have more good novels now but not in comparison to the total of what's published in my opinion. Now, trying to describe the prose and characterization of The Shadow of the Apt as anything but mediocre at best tells me that there's an inherent lack of good prose and characterization in mainstream fantasy. Whether that's different from how it was twenty years ago I wouldn't know.

You even described the characters as two-dimensional only to go on to say the characterization was well done. That surely proves my point.

Certainly, the idea of the world is excellent, but that seems to be a common problem with fantasy. If the world building is good enough, prose and characterization doesn't really matter when it comes to reviews. Just look at Wert's review of Nights of Villjamur, in which he described the prose and characterizations with a lot of very positive and flowery adjectives.

[QuickTidal]

Roland_85, on 10 August 2010 - 06:10 AM, said:

Yeah, really, today's fantasy can't hold a candle to the flowing elegance of David Eddings, Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan, not to mention their deep and multilayered characters. And silly me for liking a character who actually has the brain to tell the bad guy "dude, I'm some random girl, what do you even want with me?" and thinking it's a pleasant change to not fall into the trap of fantasy cliche dialogue...

I certainly wouldn't call any of those 4 elegant flow-ers of prose by any stretch. In fact, plugging through WoT to get to the good story bits and flushing out all the crap is tough in the later books. Eddings had a good time back in the day, but even the Belgariad is largely flawed, Goodkind is a useless pratt who can't write at all (I got through Wizards First Rule and even that made my eyes bleed), and Brooks...actually...has a fair amount of great stuff under his belt, His Word & Void series is really great. the Shannara books aren't blow you away, but they have their moments.

Basically, I feel thusly: The Shadows Of The Apt series has GREAT fresh ideas, good action, and a broad world inhabited by somewhat decent characters. the problem only arises due to the fact that after about half the first book, the characters all sort of stand around in the second dimension and don't really do much. The pace went from rocketing to sluggish in a page....and when it slowed...you notice all the other flaws, and the bad characterization.

...now take Brent Weeks Night Angel trilogy as a counterpoint. He has all of the above, but he keeps the pace ramped up, the story interesting all the way through and even keeps throwing new situations and characters at you. As far as I am concerned, he succeeded where Tchaikovsky fails. In that, I barreled through all 3 volumes of the Night angel series in a week...and gave up on the shadows of the apt after like maybe 3 quarters of the first book.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 11 August 2010 - 12:23 AM

[Roland_85]

Morgoth, on 11 August 2010 - 12:18 AM, said:

Roland_85, on 10 August 2010 - 01:33 PM, said:

Your sarcasm is misplaced, as it was you who started with the "today's youth" line of thought. I read books from every period of the genre, and always have. It's just that I find it hilarious that people are pining for the "good old" when we now have more good fantasy novels than at ANY other time the genre has existed as such.

Also, that "one line" was an example, not an exception.

My sarcasm is hardly misplaced when the essence of your post was comparable to say someone mentioning this decade as a highlight of literature and receiving a "but Dan Brown sucks and he wrote in this decade" sort of response.

Bad comparison, as Dan Brown is in no way a defining figure in this decade's literature, while the ones I mention are definitely among the most influential and/or popular in the whole fantasy field. And of course, that was not meant to be a serious argument. I just go annoyed with the "today's fantasy" attitude which smells elitist to me, sorry to say.

Morgoth, on 11 August 2010 - 12:18 AM, said:

We certainly have more good novels now but not in comparison to the total of what's published in my opinion. Now, trying to describe the prose and characterization of The Shadow of the Apt as anything but mediocre at best tells me that there's an inherent lack of good prose and characterization in mainstream fantasy. Whether that's different from how it was twenty years ago I wouldn't know.

You even described the characters as two-dimensional only to go on to say the characterization was well done. That surely proves my point.

Certainly, the idea of the world is excellent, but that seems to be a common problem with fantasy. If the world building is good enough, prose and characterization doesn't really matter when it comes to reviews. Just look at Wert's review of Nights of Villjamur, in which he described the prose and characterizations with a lot of very positive and flowery adjectives.

Thing is, I don't get why characterization has to be some staple of "must have" in every book? I mean, in Scott Bakker it's all about the characters, and that's fine. Tchaykovsky is writing lighter stuff though, adventure oriented and more mainstream-friendly. His characters are adequate and nicely developed. So what if they are not deep and multilayered? The series just doesn't need deeper characterization to work. I think an element of a work of fiction should be judged not by some overarching ideal, but by the goals the work in question is trying to achieve. To me personally, the characters of Tchaykovsky's books are more than well enough written for what he is trying to achieve in his writing.

[Morgoth]

If you want a five book series of fantasy archetypes then sure.

[Use Of Weapons]

Characterisation is important because fiction is all about actors -- by which I mean, people who take action. We, as humans, are extremely good at imagining motivation, second-guessing motives and the thinking behind them, putting ourselves in people's shoes and imagining what their state of mind is and how they are feeling. We have evolved to do this as social animals, and we are very good at it. This extends from real life to fiction, and is the reason that authors agonise over characters' realism -- because it matters when readers detect something amiss. Good characterisation proceeds from a set of characters that are more than just stereotypes or tropes, because it is then, when a character has a real personality, history, and personal motivations, that you can ask questions like, 'What would this person do in this situation, given what has come before in their experience?' Without asking questions like this, and using characters merely as interchangeable tokens to drive the plot forward, you start to lose an emotional dimension that is crucial for the reader's suspension of disbelief. And if you lose that, you lose readers.

[Cause]

Not every book needs to be the song of ice and fire and yes it can get away with minimal characterization. However such books are often intended as such from the beginning. One of my favorite series of books is the Dresden files. Anyone who says the characterization is handled well is lying. Character development is often abrupt and handled with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, it even relies on first person narration by the main character and even then he often feels off. Sometimes his reactions to things are simply beyond reasonable. The books make up for this by being essentially short (300-400 pages) self contained stories chock full of action and plot progression and as minimalist as the character is we are made to like him. You dont learn a lot about Dresden except that he is a man who wont back down when his fellow man or more importantly women is in danger. He is always on the verge on bankruptcy without ever being bankrupt and never seems to do anything about it. Its just background fluff to what makes the book great however.

The empire of black and gold on the other hand has an overarching plot through five books. It is not meant as minimalist fiction. When you end up not caring or actively disliking more than half the characters in such a book its a problem. It is partly my opinion vs yours, of course it is, yet the author obviously tried to do good characterization but failed. Even you agree with that. Also as the first in a 5 book mega plot it should have set a frantic pace to get you into the story instead the story all but moves at the speed of a glacier. I liked the kinded idea, I thought it was clever and had potential but I never liked its execution. Since when have beetles been renowned for their artifice. Why should being a spider kinded and having no aptitude for artifice blind you to how to reload a crossbow even after you have been shown ten times. Also on a very personal suspension of disbelief problem I just find theidea of a steam powered helicopter ridiculous, it is just impossible!

[Use Of Weapons]

The thing about the Dresden files is that, while character development is not subtle (and it isn't, I agree), it rings true for those characters. And that is the important issue, the one flag that above all others make one sympathise with people and their situations. Character development arises organically out of the character's own present, and the situations they find themselves in. That's what makes the Dresden Files so powerful -- characterisation is sketchy, but when it happens, it is powerful precisely because it fits. The test is to ask yourself, 'Can I imagine what character X would do if faced with a given situation?' For many of the characters in the Dresden Files, the answer is yes, at least with regards to the moral choices they would make. Fantasy's tragedy as a genre is that, all too often, there is no ground for giving that answer, because for the most part the characters are simply tools of the plot.

[Roland_85]

This is a reply to both of you. I don't wanna quote too much as it makes the posts too long, so just pick whatever applies to each of you

I love deep characterization. In fact, jitsukerr, I completely agree with your first post. BUT! What you describe is only part of literature's focus. I still insist that it is not a mandatory aspect of writing. If it were, then Hard SF would be utter trash by that definition, as I am yet to find a (sub)genre with more disgustingly annoying and cardboard characters. It seems scientists are incapable of grasping anything relevant of the human condition, instead opting for scheming self-centered douchebags to carry the plots of their books. My personal view of course, but if we follow your line of thought, all Hard SF is bad. I wouldn't touch HSF unless I was paid to, mind you, but you can't deny the genre does have its merit for certain type of people.

As for characterization in Tchaykovski's books, I don't feel he was aiming for deep character-building. I think his goals were pretty similar to those of any mid-range adventure/epic fantasy out there - to create likable characters that are not shallow enough to annoy the reader. I don't think he has done a worse job of it than, say, Jordan or Feist, or any number of other successful fantasy writers. Now, if you end up disliking the characters, then nothing could fix that. I mean, Bakker's characters are undeniably well written, have tremendous depth and are among the best I have seen in fantasy. And yet a LOT of people can't stand them. I just don't think your personal likes/dislikes (and by "your", I mean "anybody's) have anything to do with the actual quality of characterization.

[Tarcanus]

I can kind of see where Roland is coming from since I have a similar issue specifically with Brandon Sanderson, but generally with how there is a lot of 'popcorn fantasy'(PF) floating around out there that seems to be getting mixed in with quality(which is, of course, subject to each person's opinion on what constitutes quality). Brent Weeks, for instance, is total PF to me. I tried reading the first chapter and I was disgusted at the writing - but I constantly hear how fun it is to read, so I'll probably pick it up at some point. This is similar to how I feel about Scott Lynch and Sanderson. They have their moments, but most of the writing is just good and not great - where they excel is in action and magic systems in Sanderson's case and plot and structure in Lynch's case(my opinion).

The thing is, most of us who have been reading for years and years(not that Roland isn't well read - that's not what I'm trying to say) know what great writing is and we can recognize it in many of its various forms and why shouldn't we rate all literature on this grand scale? We may thoroughly enjoy the PF of Weeks, Sanderson, etc., but that doesn't mean that they are great writers and I feel like that should be recognized.

Roland, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're essentially saying that since T-sky(c wut i did thar?) wasn't shooting for superb characterization and prose that he shouldn't be graded on high standards for characterization and prose, correct? I'm inclined to call shenanigans on that. This whole discussion can be boiled down to personal opinion. Roland loved EiBaG, and that's great - I actually want to give it a go now because of the insect stuff, despite the other poor opinions of it in this topic - but trying to give it a pass because 'the author wasn't intending to have quality writing' isn't kosher

[Roland_85]

Close, but not entirely right. What I am saying is that different literature has different standards and goals. I will even go to extremes and say that I can think of a few cases where deeper characterization would have completely ruined the story. Or deeper world-building. Or whatever.

Don't get me wrong. I've been reading extensively for more than twenty years now, and Tchaikovsky is nowhere near my favorite writers. However, I have learned to differentiate. To me it is absurd to have ONE scale on which to grade everything. How do you even begin to compare Crime and Punishment, Catcher in the Rye and Book of the New Sun? What do those have in common really? In my mind there are more or less three separate layers when it comes to fantasy in particular. The low level contains all the trash - tie-in fiction, shared worlds, Terry Goodkind, all that joy. The middle level is reserved for authors who write fantasy as entertainment but still manage to do it in an intelligent and sometimes thought-provoking way. They are often PF as you call it, but still - to me - worth some respect. I number mostly all the respected names here - Erikson, Sanderson, Lynch, Rothfuss, etc. Of course, I don't think they're all on the same level, just in the same general field.The highest level are truly superior works in terms of style, characterization and/or ideas. Things like Bakker's Prince of Nothing, Wolfe's works, Crowley's Little Big and other things that often transcend the genre.

Bottom line - I put Tchaikovsky in the middle level, at the very least for his unique world-building. I prefer to judge his work based on the goals he attempted to achieve, as I consider those goals worthy enough. Deeper characterization would shift the focus from the world to the characters, and clearly that was not his intention. Thus I can't compare his characters to, say, Dostoevsky's - to me that completely defeats the idea of art being, yunno, all about variety.