[worry]

If you guys are going to continue to discuss Eddings in such a fraught manner, the ladies are going to have to leave the room as Polgara rolls her eyes.

[acesn8s]

worry, on 03 January 2018 - 07:35 PM, said:

If you guys are going to continue to discuss Eddings in such a fraught manner, the ladies are going to have to leave the room as Polgara rolls her eyes.

“It's one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you're too polite not to.
--Polgara”

[pat5150]

Just finished James S. A. Corey's Persepolis Rising​​​​​​​ and it was awesome. The best on of the bunch yet!

[Maark Abbott]

acesn8s, on 03 January 2018 - 05:59 PM, said:

Abyss, on 03 January 2018 - 05:02 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 03 January 2018 - 01:56 PM, said:

acesn8s, on 03 January 2018 - 12:37 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 03 January 2018 - 08:50 AM, said:

...


Anyway, Eddings' banter is why high Knightbro stuff works, even if there is a case of plated plot armour around the knights.

"My Lord, I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offense against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fir which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornement for a human face. Is it possible that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?"
-Mandorallen

Hah! Though the Mallorean is more proto-Knightbro. Sparkhawk And Friends is where the Knightbro really came into being. Just knights out on a quest, bein' bros, doin' bro stuff, brainin' them bad dudes.

Mandorallen was awesome, among other reasons, because he spoke like this when every other character spoke 'normal'. The contrast was funny, and when he broke from it, hysterical. More to the point, Eddings gave most characters or nations distinct speech patterns that were amazingly consistent throughout the books and one of the reasons why the characters are so vivid.

Sparhawk and Friends was all around disappointing. Mediocre first trilo, astoundingly bad second one.

Macros, on 03 January 2018 - 04:57 PM, said:

And silk being an annoying douche bag. Eddings shitty 'banter' is a direct predecessor to Sanderson's shitty 'banter'

you are dead to me

Gotcha, I do love the idea of Sparhawk and Friends. Would have made a great 80s cartoon.

Just so. It's like He-Man but with more armour and more fist-bumping. The Elenium and Tamuli aren't books to take seriously because of it, but they're also fun due to it.

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm about 3/4 through HoC. I've always thought this was one of the weaker books of the main 10 but I am flipping loving it. Certainly not weak by any stretch of the imagination, it's just relative.

[Macros]

Currently reading Of Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell.
A massive change of pace for him, this is no Uthred or Sharpe.

[Abyss]

Maark Abbott, on 04 January 2018 - 08:58 AM, said:

... The Elenium and Tamuli aren't books to take seriously because of it, but they're also fun due to it.

Elenium just coasts by on the strength of 'what if all the key characters in the Belgariad were Mandorallen' and you can overlook the ick factor to a key relationship.
Tamuli... i hate to say it but it seemed to me that Eddings phoned that one in. And unlike the Mallorean where the repetitions from the Belgariad were actually explained and plot-points, this was just 'move characters A, B, C to point X, fight, witty banter, repeat til page count met, kill one dude for pathos'.

[Tiste Simeon]

Abyss, on 04 January 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 04 January 2018 - 08:58 AM, said:

... The Elenium and Tamuli aren't books to take seriously because of it, but they're also fun due to it.

Elenium just coasts by on the strength of 'what if all the key characters in the Belgariad were Mandorallen' and you can overlook the ick factor to a key relationship.
Tamuli... i hate to say it but it seemed to me that Eddings phoned that one in. And unlike the Mallorean where the repetitions from the Belgariad were actually explained and plot-points, this was just 'move characters A, B, C to point X, fight, witty banter, repeat til page count met, kill one dude for pathos'.

Argh see now you guys are actually making me want to read them again. Like the first time I ever read them I was in the middle of my Eddings loving phase and I adored those books. This was a long time before I'd ever even heard of Erikson and Malazan... (It might have been before they first came out tbf I can't remember exactly when it all occurred).

I'm sure if I read them I'd hate them... Yet, I kind of want to!

Edit: Maybe I should, and post regular updates filled with anguish and scorn...

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 04 January 2018 - 09:58 PM

[Mentalist]

Vellum is a jumble of a plot, wrapped in a bunch of metaphors, allegories and meta-plots.

I'm also spotting A TON of Moorcock influences, which is really odd, but once I started, I can't seem to stop spotting 'em

In commute, I'm about half-way through Stealer's War . Hunt definitely does good "action-plots" - a.k.a, almost non-stop plot twists- and the overall plots are kinda cliche, but the way he mixes them up is definitely working for me. Really sad this is just a trilogy, I could definitely use more "Far-Called"

[Maark Abbott]

Tiste Simeon, on 04 January 2018 - 09:57 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 January 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 04 January 2018 - 08:58 AM, said:

... The Elenium and Tamuli aren't books to take seriously because of it, but they're also fun due to it.

Elenium just coasts by on the strength of 'what if all the key characters in the Belgariad were Mandorallen' and you can overlook the ick factor to a key relationship.
Tamuli... i hate to say it but it seemed to me that Eddings phoned that one in. And unlike the Mallorean where the repetitions from the Belgariad were actually explained and plot-points, this was just 'move characters A, B, C to point X, fight, witty banter, repeat til page count met, kill one dude for pathos'.

Argh see now you guys are actually making me want to read them again. Like the first time I ever read them I was in the middle of my Eddings loving phase and I adored those books. This was a long time before I'd ever even heard of Erikson and Malazan... (It might have been before they first came out tbf I can't remember exactly when it all occurred).

I'm sure if I read them I'd hate them... Yet, I kind of want to!

Edit: Maybe I should, and post regular updates filled with anguish and scorn...

Now I'd agree with the Tamuli. There never seemed to be any tangible threat to the protagonist / their lot. The analogy I make with the latter Eddings though is that it's like Sabaton. Cheesy, predictable, occasionally a bit shit, but you love it regardless.

Pathos is fine. Don't listen to Lithuanians about pathos ever.

I've taken a brief break from Deadhouse Landing to read Issue 9 of Gakkou Gurashi. I keep saying "gee, I didn't think the next issue could be darker than the last" but there we go. It's the Bakker of moeblob zombie apocalypse mangas.

[Macros]

Don't do it Tiste.
Remember how painful the Belgariad reread was

[polishgenius]

Macros, on 05 January 2018 - 10:20 AM, said:

Don't do it Tiste.
Remember how painful the Belgariad reread was

You know what Dre? I don't like your attitude.

[QuickTidal]

Mentalist, on 05 January 2018 - 01:27 AM, said:

Vellum is a jumble of a plot, wrapped in a bunch of metaphors, allegories and meta-plots.

One of the WORST books I've had the misfortune of reading. Hal Duncan needs a punch in his face for even writing it.

Like it's basically a weird treatise on ancient pantheons gods no one has ever heard of (at war) shoved into a plot that makes little to no sense about our earth as some fragment in a multiverse...

It's a stream of consciousness rant, masquerading as fiction.

Fucking TERRIBLE.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 05 January 2018 - 04:23 PM

[acesn8s]

About 75% through Tyrant's Throne. The chapter, The Verdict gave me chills.

[polishgenius]

Vellum is one of the greatest books in the last couple of decades. Don't listen to these chumps.




Honestly though, I completely understand not liking it- it's definitely not for everyone, though I think everyone should give it a try- but why has Duncan writing it apparently made you so angry? Genuine question. Every time you talk about it it seems like you don't hate just it but him, and not for anything he's said online like I know you dislike some other authors for but just because he wrote this book.

[amphibian]

polishgenius, on 05 January 2018 - 04:35 PM, said:

Vellum is one of the greatest books in the last couple of decades. Don't listen to these chumps.




Honestly though, I completely understand not liking it- it's definitely not for everyone, though I think everyone should give it a try- but why has Duncan writing it apparently made you so angry? Genuine question. Every time you talk about it it seems like you don't hate just it but him, and not for anything he's said online like I know you dislike some other authors for but just because he wrote this book.

I hated Vellum too. The stream of consciousness came off as more disorganized and "throw shit at the wall to see what sticks" rather than something like David Foster Wallace's stream of consciousness (profusely footnoted, of course).

I also don't like Duncan's authorial voice in his blog posts or Twitter. I bounce off every time I try to deal with those things.

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 05 January 2018 - 04:35 PM, said:

but why has Duncan writing it apparently made you so angry? Genuine question. Every time you talk about it it seems like you don't hate just it but him, and not for anything he's said online like I know you dislike some other authors for but just because he wrote this book.

There is a level of pretension to his writing that irritates the shit out of me. And as Amph noted, his social media presence (at least back when I read his book) was distasteful to me.

I'm fine with high-minded, and complex writing...or more obtuse fiction...but VELLUM pretends to be something it's not and do so while acting like it's the most amazing cypher in genre fiction...and I recall how SMUG and affronted Duncan was about it back when it as released and some people didn't like it. I got a very 'Well, you just didn't understand what I was doing" vibe from it.

Wish I could find the post or comment by him where I saw that occur.

[amphibian]

Part of what makes me bounce so hard is that Duncan's characters in Vellum are mostly the same person - and this might not be fully intentional. He doesn't do a great job of differentiating voices/characters, which is really crucial if the narratives are all chopped up and blended together.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 05 January 2018 - 06:13 PM, said:

Part of what makes me bounce so hard is that Duncan's characters in Vellum are mostly the same person - and this might not be fully intentional. He doesn't do a great job of differentiating voices/characters, which is really crucial if the narratives are all chopped up and blended together.

I agree. I found the same true. Not cardboard cutouts per say, but the voices blend together in ways that make them relatively indistinct.

[polishgenius]

Quote

Part of what makes me bounce so hard is that Duncan's characters in Vellum are mostly the same person - and this might not be fully intentional. He doesn't do a great job of differentiating voices/characters, which is really crucial if the narratives are all chopped up and blended together.

Depends what you mean here. To some extent it definitely is deliberate since despite tracking through different stories in different eras and alternate realities, Vellum is more-or-less one metachronologically* continuous narrative and different versions of characters are meant to be the same person.
But if you're saying that, say, Guy/Renard has the same voice as Pechorin or Phreedom/Anna, then fair enough. I'm not sure I agree but it's a fair complaint.




*The fact that I just had to make that phrase up to describe it means I do get the accusations of pretension. I mean, it's definitely pretensious. I just love it anyway. I love that someone had the balls to write a book this ridiculous and, in my opinion, make it stick.



I've only followed Duncan on twitter for about a year, and very sporadically check his blog, but I gotta say, I don't get any of that arrogance from him. He's very forthright sometimes and a bit cocky but I don't get the sense he's wrapped up in his own ego the way Bakker, for example, is. Maybe he was in the earlier days though.