Return of the Book Thread

[Quinton]

I'm a cover discarder.  They just get in the way.  Also they often hide a really nice exterior of a book.

[cmlancas]

I'm a cover discarder.  They just get in the way.  Also they often hide a really nice exterior of a book.

Eek!  The book collector in me is terrified by this statement.

But the reader in me understands.  :)

[Murgos]

That's what the wife said after she read it.  But really, how can avoid being somewhat of a ripoff if you've got elves and dwarves and talking trees and such?

I don't recall any elves and only one dwarf (who was a human with dwarfism) in the Belgariad.  They aren't the deepest books but I still like them and they only really copy LOTR in the formulation of the BIG BAD and the Wizards.  Not, to say they aren't formulaic but, eh, very little fantasy isn't.

[Sky]

Mind you, Sky, Moorcock's characters are also terribly, terribly shallow, but at least his world building, etc., is unique.

I've found character depth is often overrated. Sometimes a great pulpy action novel is enough.

[Khaldun]

That's what the wife said after she read it.  But really, how can avoid being somewhat of a ripoff if you've got elves and dwarves and talking trees and such?

I don't recall any elves and only one dwarf (who was a human with dwarfism) in the Belgariad.  They aren't the deepest books but I still like them and they only really copy LOTR in the formulation of the BIG BAD and the Wizards.  Not, to say they aren't formulaic but, eh, very little fantasy isn't.

There are orcish/trollish bad guys too (whom Eddings portrays in an almost racist way, since he doesn't have the deep mythic/moral rationale for why they're evil that Tolkien has). There's a McGuffin rather like the One Ring. The whole thing starts with the innocent farmboy who gets caught up in grand events etc. thing that is admittedly a staple of fantasy in general but the Belgariad is clearly looking to Tolkien and hobbits first and foremost as a narrative callback on this one. etc.

[Chimpy]

Tolkein was just as derivative of older works of fiction/mythology as anyone else.

The only difference is most people have not read the stuff he derived his plotlines from.

[Ingmar]

The big difference is Tolkien isn't stylistically derivative, other than in the poems that everyone skips anyway.

[Evildrider]

For all you Dresden fans Cold Days is coming out 11/27.   

[ghost]

The big difference is Tolkien isn't stylistically derivative, other than in the poems that everyone skips anyway.

You skip the poems?   

[Ingmar]

(Everyone but me. Hey dol merry dol.)

[Sjofn]

I skipped 100% of the poems and songs when I read the Hobbit. Still haven't read LotR. I suspect poems would be skipped, though.

[ghost]

You've never read TheLord of the Rings?   

[Evildrider]

I didn't actually read LOTR til just before the first movie came out.  I had tried to read it a few times before that, but it bored the crap out of me.  Actually I probably wouldn't reread it now unless I was desperate.

[RhyssaFireheart]

For all you Dresden fans Cold Days is coming out 11/27.   

So can't wait.  While I was off I did a run through all the Dresden books again and was wondering when the next book came out.

Oh yeah, anyone been reading the chapters that are coming on on the Tor website for first book of the Kharkanas Trilogy, The Forge of Darkness by Erickson?  I don't mind books going back and filling in details of what happened, I just hope it doesn't turn into milking the series for all it's worth.

[Khaldun]

I think there's a difference between a sort of 'primary derivation' from very old literary and mythological sources and one recent book closely following the tropes, narrative line and characterization of another recent book. Tolkien had to read and understand a lot of older literary works, make some decisions about how to adapt and distill and refashion what he read, and have a purpose in mind. Whereas, secondary derviations just say, "Ok, so here's Mordor "Land of Evil" where Sauron the evil king/dark lord lives, here's Gandalf an ancient wizard or warrior who needs enlist Frodo a young farm boy with a secret destiny on a quest to carry or find the One Ring the Magic McGuffin.

The secondary derivation has less work to do, doesn't have any vision beyond, "Make this enough like LOTR that people who liked LOTR will like this and enough not like it that I don't get sued". Sometimes this actually limits what might be interesting in its own way about a book, and sometimes I think the author almost doesn't know he's deriving. Christopher Paolini, say, who really didn't need elves and dwarves and the land of evil and all that, I think, but who was probably following the recipe almost the way Tolkien worked with his sources--for Paolini at 14 or whatever, LOTR must almost have been an ur-story, a founding myth. 

[Morat20]

The basic story in Butcher's Codex Alera was so old creaked, but I didn't notice until, well, pretty much the end.

To me, that's fairly impressive -- to tell not just a stock fantasy story, but one of THE stock fantasy stories  and to be surprised by it? Pretty solid.

I don't think there's a lot of new stories -- or even new ideas. In the end, your works are gonna be derivative of someone's -- if for no other reason than any fiction writer has read lots of stories, and is going to be influenced by them when he or she sits down to write their own.

Good writers take concepts, plots, ideas, characters -- from a lot of places, develop them conciously and unconciously in new ways. Bad ones? Bad ones just slap on a few new names and call it original.

Brook's Shannara books were, you know, pretty much straight up LoTR under different names. On the other hand, fantasy was a pretty arid wasteland at the time so Tolkien was basically it unless you (as Tolkien did) burrowed into myth and legend and melted them together. (And Tolkein's wasn't above stealing entire legends when it suited him.). He got better, to an extent, which is more than some writers.

[ghost]

I guess anything can be said to be derivative, it's just what level you're talking about.  There are only so many ways to tell a story. 

[lamaros]

I think there's a difference between a sort of 'primary derivation' from very old literary and mythological sources and one recent book closely following the tropes, narrative line and characterization of another recent book. Tolkien had to read and understand a lot of older literary works, make some decisions about how to adapt and distill and refashion what he read, and have a purpose in mind. Whereas, secondary derviations just say, "Ok, so here's Mordor "Land of Evil" where Sauron the evil king/dark lord lives, here's Gandalf an ancient wizard or warrior who needs enlist Frodo a young farm boy with a secret destiny on a quest to carry or find the One Ring the Magic McGuffin.

The secondary derivation has less work to do, doesn't have any vision beyond, "Make this enough like LOTR that people who liked LOTR will like this and enough not like it that I don't get sued". Sometimes this actually limits what might be interesting in its own way about a book, and sometimes I think the author almost doesn't know he's deriving. Christopher Paolini, say, who really didn't need elves and dwarves and the land of evil and all that, I think, but who was probably following the recipe almost the way Tolkien worked with his sources--for Paolini at 14 or whatever, LOTR must almost have been an ur-story, a founding myth.

Eh, I think it's down to the quality of the writing, not the intention or influences of the author. You can tell a great 'Land of evil/dark lord/wizard/farm boy' story without it being Paolini. To give Tolkien all the cred for such stories and deny them to others seems a bit unfair to me.

Also, LOTR, as mentioned above, is really really boring. Much more fun to talk about than read. If someone writes a really well crafted fantasy epic that turn the pages faster than my mind can keep up I'm giving just as much 'derivative' credit to authors like Dan Brown as Tolkien (which is to say - not at all - I'm not in to giving credit to other authors for something I enjoy in a book).

[Khaldun]

Part of the quality of the writing--maybe the biggest part--is not page-turning plotting or nice descriptions or whatever. It's ownership. When someone has real ownership over their storytelling, you can really feel it at every moment. Most of the worst derivatives, even if the story 'reads easy', don't have ownership and you can feel that palpably at every moment of what they are doing.

[ghost]

That "ownership" quality is what I've always hated about Kevin J. Anderson.  The stories are often decent at their base level, but there's something cooked-up feeling about the writing, as if it were paint by numbers. 

Then you have the flip side of that in someone like Lois McMaster Bujold and the Vokosigan series. 

[lamaros]

Part of the quality of the writing--maybe the biggest part--is not page-turning plotting or nice descriptions or whatever. It's ownership. When someone has real ownership over their storytelling, you can really feel it at every moment. Most of the worst derivatives, even if the story 'reads easy', don't have ownership and you can feel that palpably at every moment of what they are doing.

I guess that all depends on what you want a book to do. I would rather read the Da Vinci Code or any of my Clive Cussler's again before Lord of the Rings, even if I can recognise the ownership of Tolkien, appreciate the qualities of the work, and consider it to be 'better' in many ways.

I wrote my honours thesis on the author of one of the least read classics of the 20th century, so I'm not averse to some snobbery, but there are a lot of different ways a book can be 'good' which don't preclude them from being hugely flawed in others.

[Rendakor]

I'm about 3/4 through REAMDE now; it's gotten better but I still feel it's much less good than Snow Crash. Too much Tom Clancy, not enough World of Warcraft.

[Ironwood]

Finished Stonemouth by Iain Banks and The Long Earth by Pratchett and whatshisname.

Both Good.

Both have no idea how to end a book.

Sigh.  Seems Stephenson disease is catching.

[lamaros]

As popular authors with major publishers they also have expert advice on such things.

Consider how the endings might have been before editing!

[Shannow]

btw thanks to whoever made the Wool Omnibus recommendation. Burned through that this week, fantastic!

Anyone else think that would make a good TV show? Getting a kind of BSG vibe from it.

[Hammond]

So I had been on the fence on reading The Long Earth by Prachett and Stephen Baxter.  I took the plunge and it was a decent read all in all.  But seriously what was up with that ending it wasn't quite mid sentence but geez.

I have read a bunch of books this summer but very few stick out.  I really liked Ready Player One by Ernest Cline it was a great read once you got past the sheer amount of geek fanboism.  Red Shirts by John Scalzi was also excellent.  I also read a few other books by John Scalzi which were not to bad. 

[Viin]

btw thanks to whoever made the Wool Omnibus recommendation. Burned through that this week, fantastic!

Anyone else think that would make a good TV show? Getting a kind of BSG vibe from it.

You are welcome. I was thinking the same thing about TV. To me, a production like Moon (surreal, contemplating, etc) would be perfect (for the first book at least).

[Johny Cee]

For all you Dresden fans Cold Days is coming out 11/27.   

I hope Cold Days is an improvement.  I didn't like Turncoat, thought Changes wasn't very good, and Ghost Story was okayish.

Butcher did a thing for Geek & Sundry with Pat Rothfuss and some other authors here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52khu_YJAmo


Going to stick this here:

Ben Aaronovitch's Midnight Riot and the followups are very, very good....  Best UF I've read since Harry Connolly's "Twenty Palaces".  It's very much like Dresden but set in London with geekery dialed back.  Much more grounded as the characters are all police, dealing with and covering up the hinky stuff.

[Soln]

Yes +1 for Lowry and Under the Volcano.  Badly ignored work.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, it's a great book. Reading it makes you feel like you're on a long, weird drunk yourself.

[lamaros]

I just finished reading the last three books in Alex Bledsoe's Eddie LaCrosse series. I really really like them! I recommend them to everyone. Wish I had another one to read now :(

[ghost]

I just finished Use of Weapons.  I am rarely fooled by a book, but I was completely flummoxed by this one.  It's a good read, if you haven't read it.

[Ironwood]

Deary me.

Did my dissertation on that one.  If anyone else hasn't read it, READ IT.

[Khaldun]

New Culture novel coming this fall. Supposedly goes back to the early days of the Culture.

[Soln]

Culture novels are very strange.  I have reread them all maybe 3 times and I am always disappointed by the endings.  And I still recommend them.   Weird?