[Murrin]

At the minute I'm finding I have more to read than ever, old and new. There are so many authors out there producing good work at the minute - the only problem is finding out which ones they are.

[Arkmam]

There are many good ones, you just have to axe your way through the layer of Jordan, Goodkind, LeGuin, Brooks and other well known but oh-so-awful pieces of fiction to find them.

[Lorn]

There are so many books left to read. If I find a book I don't like I just drop it and start another one. I always read reviews before I buy a book to make sure that it isn't crap. Usually works fine (except in the cases of Mieville and Bakker which both were huge disappointments).

[ChrisW]

I'm content for now. As long as Jordan keeps pumping them out i'll be happy :cool: . It's a pitty there arn't more like him :eek3: .

[Asheroth]

^ Strange kid, that one.

[Kimpo]

heh, I'm with Chris, nothing wrong with Jordan, he can be a tad longwinded but I'm a speedy reader so I don't mind. haven't had that much time and cash lately to indulge my litterary aptite but there's always something if you look close enough and beyond those few who are hyped the most

[Brys]

I think that the fantasy genre, as a whole, is fine at the moment. Epic fantasy, admittedly, is starting to stagnate, and other than 6 or 7 authors (Martin, Erikson Bakker, Jones, Keyes, Hobb) there is very little worth reading. In fantasy as a whole though there are huge numbers of authors worth reading, including Mieville, Wolfe, Swainston, Gaiman and Moorcock, just to name a few. The New Weird movement seems to be where most of the best fantasy is being written at the moment.

I also think that there is a lot of good fantasy from more than 20 years ago. I disagree that you can call some of them dated, eg Zelazny's Amber and Leiber's Lankhmar are written in a modern style, and you can barely tell that they were written when they were. The only ones that seem dated are those using archaic language, such as Tolkien.

[ObsoleteResolve]

I guess I just don't have high expectations, and view people like Martin and Erikson as exceptions. I can consistently find pretty good stuff- and I have gone through all of the authors I know of (a long, long time ago- Erikson was a "Hmm, this looks interesting" buy) and now just browse, find something, and read it. Reading Bujold's Chalion stuff right now, and I really like it.

Of course, I also have a broad range of interests- Weber and other military S-F, fantasy, Asher and a few others (what the hell'd you classify Neal Asher as?), horror, magical noir or whateverthef*ckyouwanttocall the mystery/real-world-meets-strangeness soap opera dramas (well, they are. Wow... I feel embarassed admitting that...) AHEM to fluff like Mercedes Lackey. Just whatever strikes my fancy, really. It's a rare, rare book that I can't get through and get at least a little enjoyment out of it, enough to justify the 7.99.

I do need to pick up Mieville eventually, though...

I do agree about Amber, at least- I haven't read Leibers Lankhmar, sadly. I'm not big on antiquated styles of writing- even Tolkien gets on my nerves nowadays -and Zelazny's is most definitely not antiquated. I think, as long as it goes back 20 to 30 years, it's still pretty modern, with similiar phrasing and structuring. Further, and you're getting into murky waters. Which is one of the reasons why, despite liking space operas, I haven't picked up the Lensman (EE "Doc" Smith wasn't it?) series- I just have a sinking feeling it wouldn't work with me.

I can't get into Moorcock and Wolfe that well, though.

.david

[stone monkey]

It's difficult to say. I would argue that the genre is probably in a better state than it has been for as far back as I can remember (Given how old I am, that may be before some of you were born) The problem being, as it usually is, that Sturgeon's Law still applies.
There is a solution, of course: get out of the Fantasy ghetto, go and read something else and then come back to Fantasy with your appetite whetted and your palate refreshed (as it were)

[No-God]

Klipper said:

The hard part is finding a good other it seems to me 95% of fantisy is crap. I don't like the fantisy where the main charicter goes on a quest, fights troll and orcs, and meet up with elves on the way. These books just don't appeal to me.

Truer words have never been spoken. The old 'small town boy becomes king' storyline gets old, fast. I'm not saying that the only good fantasy has to be as in-depth as Erikson, Martin or Bakker, but a little thought is beneficial.

As far as good novels, there's plenty of them. As far as the best novels go, though, we only really have George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice & Fire, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing, and you can argue that J.V. Jones' Sword of Shadows is up there. But seriously, if everything was 'the best', we wouldn't find any of those series special, as it were.

That said, I'm quite satisfied with the fantasy genre, but thats partially because I'm a relative 'late-comer' to the genre. I have plenty to catch up on.

[Brys]

ObsoleteResolve said:

I do agree about Amber, at least- I haven't read Leibers Lankhmar, sadly. I'm not big on antiquated styles of writing- even Tolkien gets on my nerves nowadays -and Zelazny's is most definitely not antiquated. I think, as long as it goes back 20 to 30 years, it's still pretty modern, with similiar phrasing and structuring. Further, and you're getting into murky waters. Which is one of the reasons why, despite liking space operas, I haven't picked up the Lensman (EE "Doc" Smith wasn't it?) series- I just have a sinking feeling it wouldn't work with me.

I can't get into Moorcock and Wolfe that well, though.

.david

Actually, while Leiber was writing about the same time as Tolkien, he writes just like a modern author. It's similar in style to Zelazny, or Erikson. I think what you have to actually look for is people deliberately trying to write in an archaic style - ie Eddison and Tolkien, and those who just write normally, and the latter, so long as they were written sometime in the 20th Century or later, tend to seem as if they could have been written ten years ago, not fifty.

@Klipper - you're right, 95% of fantasy is crap. I just try to read the 5% of fantasy that isn't - there's plenty to read in that 5%, as long as you know where to look. Though there is huge amounts which aren't the traditional boy becomes king/Tolkienesque fantasy - particularly in New Weird and New Wave (eg Mieville, Peake, Zelazny, Moorcock etc). Generally, anything written more than 20 years ago is a lot more original than most of what is written today, because back then, the idea of commercial fantasy had barely started.

[Brys]

JJ, I know what you mean about bookshops. I barely ever go there and actually buy SFF, because they only stock the bestsellers like Eddings and Jordan. (Except, look closesly and some of the best fantasy is actually hidden away under the fiction section). I only buy from there when I find something good and I've gone into town for another reason anyway. University bookshops tend to be pretty good for SFF though, as I've found out from visiting quite a few to decide where to go.

They really should stock Zelazny, because I'm pretty sure he'd sell well in the mainstream, and also with everyone who wants good fantasy, instead of forcing us to turn to amazon.

Vellum's out already? I thought it wasn't coming out for another couple of months, though I've heard lots of good things about it.

[Brys]

That's good news - except that my to read list is already larger than 50, so it looks like I've got a lot of reading to do.

[gyrehead]

Over satisfied is more like it. But that is a good thing. When I really first started reading fantasy, the shelves were mostly pulp paperback. The last two or three years have been incredible.

Bakker, the re-invention of Greg Keyes, Jacqueline Cary, Sarah Micklem are all relatively recent. The genre has gained enough strength that the US is finally seeing authors that, ten years ago, we would never have had published here. Fallon and Croggon and Larke from Australia, Erikson from the UK.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the year, I will have added over a hundred new books released this same year to my library. When I first started collecting fantasy, one a month was considered a good take for the year. Now five to ten a month of good decent re-readable fantasy is piling on the shelf. And stuff that pas my nitice the first time gathers there as well.

My main reading group has over thirty novels in edit that we were given that will be out in the next two year span. 2/3 of them are first books. And my writing workshop sends out about three ARCS a month, which is simply incredible.

Is there a glut? Of course. There are plenty of horrendous works out this cluttering the bookstore shelves. Self-publishing and the small slightly legimate vanity presses proliferate. To the point that some quality might get lost in that particular sea (of course, conversely, there is the heavy-handed elitist small press mentality which helps offset that).

But overall, I think the multitude of deft, entertaining storytellers hitting the shelves is a great thing. I cannot keep up and have such a lovely stockpile of books to read as well as a seemingly endless array of those I want to re-read some day. To the point that I could probably stop acquiring them right now and be able to read a new book at my regular pace for the next five or six years (not all fantasy -- but my typical percentage). With rereads I could probably find something to keep me occupied for the rest of my life. But I'm not quite ready to let that happen.

[Abyss]

I have yet to hit the point where i have nothing to read. In fact, I have a huge backlog, including Kay, Cook and Kearney (most of which i picked up because of recommendations on this forum, btw).

I'm not the most critical of readers. As long as an author keeps me at least mildly entertained, i'll stick for the ride. Not to say i don't appreciate the higher quality of some above others, by example, I'll pay hardcover price for Erikson or Martin, whereas i'll wait for a sale, secondhand or paperback for Brooks, Jordan or assorted others.

To date, the few authors i've just dropped utterly consist of:
- Terry Goodkind. Who makes my eyes bleed.
- Weis/Hickman, because their style of nothing-major-happens-'til-the-end annoys me.
- David Eddings, who i still think is a great entry-level author for young fantasy readers, but gets old after one reads a few more complex stories.
- Did i mention that Goodkind makes my eyes bleed?

Some early CJ Cherryh left me bored, but i suppose i'll finish the Morgaine set eventually when i get through my backlog and havn't acquired something new yet.

- Abyss, Goodkind, eyes, bleeding.