Tatterdemalion, on 22 November 2019 - 02:00 AM, said:
Bullshit. If you hammer random words into Google translate (which is what his stuff reads like) to make them German, it's German. Broken as hell German, but German. If he wants to create terms that sound like German to create an atmosphere, he's welcome to emulate it by having hella fun with the morphology and phonology of German and other Germanic languages. The fact that it can be done is shown best by Bakker, who created names and titles that sound Assyrian and Greek but are not.
Tatterdemalion, on 22 November 2019 - 02:00 AM, said:
Yeah, but at the same time Lawrence admits he doesn't care what criteria people use to vote in his polls. To him, "didn't like it, so it's grimdark" is equally as valid as far as criteria go as anything else. I freaking hate Alice in Wonderland, which does have some very dark themes. Is it grimdark? Hell no. Additionally, only taking into account the first book of any given series is equally unhelpful, considering in Fantasy is it very common for a series to come into its own voice only in the second or third installment. Anothe rpoint is, as you point out, we don't know how many people vote. A book could have gotten five votes but all going "yeah, this is totally grimdark!" for no discernible criteria and that book ending up somewhere high in the ranking.
To make it clear, I don't care whether people think Bakker or Fletcher is top dog in the grimdark ranking, my issue is with Lawrence's approach as well as his whole master of grimdark schtick. I prefer Bakker because there's a clear difference in who cared enough to do more than hammer random words into Google translate to tell his story. Like it or not, you're always going to alienate people who speak the language you are using to add fluff to your story unless you put in the research. Sapkowski wrote essays about that issue way back when and I'm sure he's not the only one. Saying "yeah, sorry 'bout that, guys" isn't really cutting it.
This post has been edited by Puck: 22 November 2019 - 03:24 PM