[ObsoleteResolve]

KarsaBefOrlong: Bwa-hahaha, someone else who agrees with me~! I got to the "mysterious woman with deep dark secret gets drunk and blabbers away backstory" and threw the book out.

Actually, no, I didn't throw it out. A few of my friends write and, whenever they feel they can't write, I beat them over the head with the book.

[Shryval]

ObsoleteResolve said:

KarsaBefOrlong: Bwa-hahaha, someone else who agrees with me~! I got to the "mysterious woman with deep dark secret gets drunk and blabbers away backstory" and threw the book out.

Actually, no, I didn't throw it out. A few of my friends write and, whenever they feel they can't write, I beat them over the head with the book.

Ha, great idea ObsoleteResolve. The true value of a really poor book, if we must seek to forgive ourselves for wasting six quid, is to keep it as a reminder that there's always hope we can get published ourselves. Thankyou Ian Irvine, for showing those of us not fortunate enough to be Steven Erikson that anything is possible!

[ObsoleteResolve]

Hehe, the only other one I use for that purpose is Paolini's Eragon.

I just have to read three pages and my rage returns.

Arg...

[Astra]

ObsoleteResolve said:

Hehe, the only other one I use for that purpose is Paolini's Eragon.

I just have to read three pages and my rage returns.

Arg...

Is it so bad?
I have almost bought his second book..almost. My wife found a newspaper article where they wrote that he is the most popular fantasy writer in the USa now, as popular as Dan Brown.

[Sir Thursday]

QuickTidal said:

c: This is a fact too: J.K. Rowling (besides her skills as an author) has gotten an entire generation of children to love reading as much as they love tv....and that you must admit is an accomplishment. MY own neice did not want to read when she was younger, she claimed it was a boring activity. It wasn't until my sister sat down with her to read the first HP book that she became a big fan of reading....and now...like me....you don't find her without a book. For that ALONE, J.K. deserves your praise.

I have to disagree with you on this one. I have a lot of friends who, when the subject of conversation say: "I've read Harry Potter." Anything else? "Dan Brown." And that is usually it. I can't say I've ever met anyone who has started reading because of Harry Potter...their reading it seemed to be an exception more than the start of a trend. I applaud your success story, but I think your statement needs some slight alteration:

J.K. Rowling has gotten an entire generation of children to love reading Harry Potter books as much as they love tv.

I think that paints a slightly more realistic picture.

Vox

(edit: sorry about replying to a message so far back in the thread...I hadn't realised it was 15 pages long)

[Abyss]

vox said:

...J.K. Rowling has gotten an entire generation of children to love reading Harry Potter books as much as they love tv....

Interesting point. Not necessarily accurate, because in theory, same children would be more receptive to further reading than might be the case if they had never read HP. Still, the parallel is thought provoking.

- Abyss, loves tv as much as, say, a drinkable, yet not truly enjoyable, red wine. Or cheesie poofs.

[ObsoleteResolve]

astra_lestat: It's that bad and worse. The main character of Eragon is simple fantasy-fulfillment for Paolini- talented, smart, wielding a big-ass-sword with one hand, etc, et al, ad naseum.

The plot is just horrible. The sentence structure is absolutely sub par- even in comparison with Rowling, who doesn't write exactly complex sentences. The endless repetition of subject-verb sentences (He said; He stepped; He blew; he sucked) is abysmal. While the sentence structure steps up a little about halfway through, it's still extremely, extremely simplistic. And, again, this is comparing it to Rowling.

The only reason the talentless hack got published is that his parents are in the publishing industry, were able to self-publish and promote the hell out of it. That's all.

The world is utterly derivative, and it doesn't help (although he's removed this tardgasm from his site) that he's got an ego the size of John Holmes'... ahem. I remember awhile back, being bored I checked his site, and he had some masturbatory blurb about how he tries to achieve the poetry of blah, the imagery of blah, etc, trying to compare himself to the greats of fantasy and literature.

So, yeah. Read it if you want to be depressed about the state of literature in America. Remember: he was a New York Times Bestseller.

[Astra]

ObsoleteResolve said:

So, yeah. Read it if you want to be depressed about the state of literature in America. Remember: he was a New York Times Bestseller.

Oh well, I will postpone it for a while
Also I see that it was truth that it was a NYT Bestseller. I though it was a lie!