[lobo the wolfman]

I found both authors to be good reads, but it all depends what kind of reading experience you want.

For me Abercrombie's First Law trilogy was like read large Warhammer novel but with more swearing, sex and bloody mayhem and a bit less daemons. Very fun with lots of dark humour but nothing that is going to challenge your way of thinking. Also l will third Abyss and Tapper's recommendation and read Best Served Cold.

Bakker's Prince of Nothing on the other hand will make you think, and maybe make you a bit unconformable about how he treats his characters. The world he has made isn't a safe and happy place that is for sure, and is very bleak but really worth trying.

[QuickTidal]

Demonic Weasel, on 31 July 2010 - 12:43 AM, said:

I'm a bit hesitant to step into yet another one of these disussions of Bakker's percieved sexism, but I think there's a point worth making here. Bakker does have female characters who make informed choices, and struggle to get what they can. It sounds to me that what you found distasteful was the lack of agency on the part of any of the female characters (though Esmi certainly gets some later on, and I would argue that Istryia has always had some from where we see her) and that by putting his female characters into a situation in which they start off with no agency is somehow tacitly condoning the subjugation of women. In the series in question, I don't see how you could be more wrong. Bakker is doing more than saying that "well, historically, women have been discriminated against." He's coming right out and showing us that for most of human history, it sucked to BE a woman. Not because women deserve to have hard lives, but because the social institutions and assumptions of most of our history have been stifling. I fail to see how showing that clearly could be concieved as mysoginistic in any way, because in no place does Bakker say, "and so it should be" or, "and this is ok." It's exactly the same thing that Abercrombie does by making Jezal a POV in TFL, just the other way around; Abercrombie shows us why it's awful that Jezal has this kind of privilege, and despite the fact that Jezal is sexist, almost nobody claims that that makes Abercrombie sexist. I think that if Bakker focused on giving his female characters agency above anything else, he would be blunting the edge of the commentary on what makes most of our history so appalling. Anyway. Just for an alternate view of the subject.

As to the topic at hand, I liked both series and agree with the sentiment that they're very different. Personally, PoN is probably my favorite fantasy trilogy ever, so I'd reccomend it. But really, both are good.

I truly like this response to my comments. It is well thought out and lucid and not at all kneejerk. Instead of making me want to retort, it made me think that I shouldn't open my yap too much if I haven't finished most of the second and third books. It also gave me a new perspective on the situation. One, I will be honest I didn't see before. This is probably the most respectful response to a heated discussion I have been a party to, and I really appreciate it. Thank you! I repped you for this.

[Dolorous Menhir]

Bakker's series filled me with a strong dislike for his writing. I don't think I've ever reacted so negatively to another author, especially one that has received so much support here. Definitely wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

I haven't read the Abercrombie books, so can't venture an opinion there. Hopefully they're better than Bakker though.

[Roland_85]

Uhm, was it a general dislike, or something in particular? I mean, if it is something in particular (and especially considering the number of people that like the books), maybe you should consider recommending the books to people who wouldn't mind those particular things, no?

[QuickTidal]

Roland_85, on 03 August 2010 - 02:16 AM, said:

Uhm, was it a general dislike, or something in particular? I mean, if it is something in particular (and especially considering the number of people that like the books), maybe you should consider recommending the books to people who wouldn't mind those particular things, no?

Really?

Haha. Trying to get someone who didn't like the books to weed out the stuff they didn't like so someone who doesn't mind those things can be convinced to read it?

Really?

HAHA. Oh man, what a thing to do. Just let Dolorous not like the books be what it is. Shit...it's not a science...it's like or dislike.

[Roland_85]

I am... er... "letting" him like/dislike as much as he wants. I was just asking if it is so general as to not being able to pinpoint why that dislike is. I mean, I dislike the Twilight novels, but I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them to my 14 y/o sister. So the thing about "I wouldn't recommend them to anyone" was a bit confusing to me.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I wrote some posts on the Bakker books a while ago. My post history doesn't seem to work (have the old posts disappeared? I have lost track of the forum moves), so this is the link to one of them.

This discussion is also good:
http://forum.malazan...opic=10327&st=0

edit: I should add, both those links are full of spoilers, serious ones.

This post has been edited by Dolorous Menhir: 03 August 2010 - 08:00 PM

[Demonic Weasel]

Roland_85, on 03 August 2010 - 02:54 PM, said:

I am... er... "letting" him like/dislike as much as he wants. I was just asking if it is so general as to not being able to pinpoint why that dislike is. I mean, I dislike the Twilight novels, but I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them to my 14 y/o sister. So the thing about "I wouldn't recommend them to anyone" was a bit confusing to me.

I would have serious problems recommending Twlight to anyone given the fact that those books do have a strong core of mysoginy running through them.

[Roland_85]

They don't, in fact. It's a common flaw of mediocre writing to fall into easy stereotypes. I am quite certain that Meyer never intended to put any hint of misoginy there. And anyway, any smart person could just ignore it.

[Paran]

Both. Absolutely both.

First Law is sinister clothed in run-of-the-mill. Very tight trilogy.

Prince of Nothing is Dune set in f-ed up middle earth, and is very adult.

[ansible]

I've been slowly collecting these books while I finish my reread of MBotF. The only one I'm missing is now the final book of The Prince of Nothing. This has been an interesting thread; I imagine I'll read First Law first, as it seems to be a less dense read. Excited for both, though.

[Demonic Weasel]

Roland_85, on 04 August 2010 - 03:26 AM, said:

They don't, in fact. It's a common flaw of mediocre writing to fall into easy stereotypes. I am quite certain that Meyer never intended to put any hint of misoginy there. And anyway, any smart person could just ignore it.

Sure, an intelligent person could. All kinds of people could deconstruct just about anything. But in this case, what worries me about Twlight is its target audience. I have a feeling that most adolescent girls won't be deconstructing it too thoroughy, if at all. And to say that there is no mysoginy in the books is intellectually dishonest in my opinion. We could argue all day about what Meyer's intentions were, but I think it's pretty undeniable that there are some unhealthy narratives taking place in the text, whether or not they're intentional.

[polishgenius]

Dolorous Menhir, have you read Bakker's The Judging Eye? It fixes a lot of the problems you raise with the first trilogy, cutting out the majority of the excess philosophy and bringing the scope down to a more personal level (not that the story is smaller in scale, but there's less propensity to suddenly do a textual flyby of everything that's going on to keep tabs on progress, so things that matter are brought in through the characters, rather than an all-seeing-eye).

[Dolorous Menhir]

I haven't, no. After my experience with books two and three I've little interest in seeing what these characters do next.

Is it worthwhile?

[Roland_85]

Demonic Weasel, on 04 August 2010 - 05:59 PM, said:

Roland_85, on 04 August 2010 - 03:26 AM, said:

They don't, in fact. It's a common flaw of mediocre writing to fall into easy stereotypes. I am quite certain that Meyer never intended to put any hint of misoginy there. And anyway, any smart person could just ignore it.

Sure, an intelligent person could. All kinds of people could deconstruct just about anything. But in this case, what worries me about Twlight is its target audience. I have a feeling that most adolescent girls won't be deconstructing it too thoroughy, if at all. And to say that there is no mysoginy in the books is intellectually dishonest in my opinion. We could argue all day about what Meyer's intentions were, but I think it's pretty undeniable that there are some unhealthy narratives taking place in the text, whether or not they're intentional.

Yeah, you're right. But I still don't think most girls would even notice those, or be influenced by them.

[polishgenius]

Dolorous Menhir, on 04 August 2010 - 06:39 PM, said:

Is it worthwhile?

I think it is - the originals were intriguing, but TJE moved Bakker up onto my 'essential fantasists' list. Although do bear in mind that although I had a lot of the same issues as you did with the first lot, I found the positives outweighed the negatives on balance. But yeah, TJE is a much more focused, streamlined book- perhaps because he's not basing it on a real conflict, so he doesn't feel the need to zoom around detailing things that would have happened but have little to do with the plot. The characters are a lot more characters and less mouthpieces too. And it's less frustratingly obscure with backstory. You learn much more about what's going on and why, and it's all in the text, since the glossarry's an SE style one, not an encylopeadia.

It is a much more series-oriented book than even the first three, though - two of the main plot-arcs literally just stop with nothing resembling an arc or even a resting point. So you may wanna wait to see if he doesn't slip back with the next one.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 04 August 2010 - 06:58 PM

[Demonic Weasel]

Roland_85, on 04 August 2010 - 06:40 PM, said:

Demonic Weasel, on 04 August 2010 - 05:59 PM, said:

Roland_85, on 04 August 2010 - 03:26 AM, said:

They don't, in fact. It's a common flaw of mediocre writing to fall into easy stereotypes. I am quite certain that Meyer never intended to put any hint of misoginy there. And anyway, any smart person could just ignore it.

Sure, an intelligent person could. All kinds of people could deconstruct just about anything. But in this case, what worries me about Twlight is its target audience. I have a feeling that most adolescent girls won't be deconstructing it too thoroughy, if at all. And to say that there is no mysoginy in the books is intellectually dishonest in my opinion. We could argue all day about what Meyer's intentions were, but I think it's pretty undeniable that there are some unhealthy narratives taking place in the text, whether or not they're intentional.

Yeah, you're right. But I still don't think most girls would even notice those, or be influenced by them.

Not in isolation no, but considering all of the places that these narratives can be found, I'm not too fond of Meyer's legitimizing some of them, in the eyes of various girls. It doesn't have to be a conscious thing to happen. But, either way, that's enough of that threadjack. We can both sit around in smug assurance that we are both satisfied by Scott Bakker.

[HoosierDaddy]

I just finished The Judging Eye last night. The lack of philosophy was much welcomed, but overall I'd still say it was nowhere near great, but comfortably an okay read, as opposed to bad. The one thing I noted in TJE, and it completely jerked any suspension of disbelief I had away from the book happens at the very end.

Spoiler

The Cil-Aujas chase. The entire time I was thinking Mines of Moria. Over and over again, and when it eventually happened my only thought was: This is far too ripped off for me to appreciate it as shout-out to Tolkien.

That is perhaps coloring my overall feel of the book as I write this.

If I had to weigh The Judging Eye vs. Best Served Cold, I'd state that both are novels that you could easily tell came from the author of their respective trilogies, but with Abercrombie remaining the more pleasing to read. Strangely, both authors create characters that I absolutely loathe. I despise them. The difference, is that I like to read about Abercrombie's characters. I love to hate them, and I read the books to see what happens to them as the books progress. I hate Bakker's characters and finish the books in spite of them, and to just get to the conclusion.

This post has been edited by H.D.: 06 August 2010 - 02:08 AM

[QuickTidal]

This thread has done something wonderful for me....it's made me yearn for my Abercrombie fix....so I am gonna go back and re-read the First Law Trilogy for a second helping of awesome!

Woot!

[Bauchelain the Evil]

H.D., on 04 August 2010 - 10:50 PM, said:

I just finished The Judging Eye last night. The lack of philosophy was much welcomed, but overall I'd still say it was nowhere near great, but comfortably an okay read, as opposed to bad. The one thing I noted in TJE, and it completely jerked any suspension of disbelief I had away from the book happens at the very end.

Spoiler

The Cil-Aujas chase. The entire time I was thinking Mines of Moria. Over and over again, and when it eventually happened my only thought was: This is far too ripped off for me to appreciate it as shout-out to Tolkien.

That is perhaps coloring my overall feel of the book as I write this.

I've heard lots of people complaining about this but it never bothered me(maybe because I never liked Tolkien). Whenever I think of that scene it's like: Moria but better!!