Return of the Book Thread

[Morat20]

Wait. Was that quote from an actual book? That was published?

Yes. Also that photo looks shopped.

I can tell from my vast experience with evil chickens.

[tgr]

Apparently. Behold:
http://www.bookandreader.com/forums/f27/goodkind-quotes-11371.html

[stu]

That was from the fifth book in the series, so there was much more to follow harharhar....

[Morat20]

That was from the fifth book in the series, so there was much more to follow harharhar....

I confess to turning the evil chicken into a reoccuring villian in a D&D game. (Well, the thingy behind it). One of their re-occuring opponents was a spell-thief. He had no magic of his own, but was ridiculously profiecient with enchantment and could steal arcane and even divine spells by brushing up against people.

They wouldn't even realize they were gone until they went to use them. Was fun, especially the first time they fought him -- the mage and cleric were mostly sucked dry when the fight started.

I also had evil chickens, because it seemed wrong not to.

[proudft]

I read the first book, oh, about ten years ago.  I cracked it open in the bookstore and gave it a quick scan and decided the prose was smooth and unstilted and, hey, this looks like the standard-issue teenager with older wizard mentor, what's the worst that could happen?  Sold!

 

That is the book where I learned that something can be written well but be utterly wretched in every other way that matters.  Plot, characterization, any semblance of drama or consistency - all just horrific.  

I re-read it about once every couple of years to remind myself to be pickier about what I buy.

In unrelated news, I haven't finished Moby Dick yet.  I sort of forgot about it for a while - I am in what is apparently a long series of whale biology chapters, and while I find them interesting and amusing, they are easy to just absent-mindedly forget to get back to reading after one puts the book down for the evening since it's not like they're advancing the plot.   But it's still what I am reading, when I get around to remembering to read.  

Edit edit:  I kinda like the Shannara books - at least the first three.  They're sort of bland and oddly non-violent but whatever.  I REALLY like the Elfstones of Shannara, the one with the big demon invasion.  That one is legitimately awesome.

[Johny Cee]

I don't see a good argument for excluding King, frankly.

As for how Goodkind ends up on the list, he's fucking popular for some unknown reason, and the list was generated by a poll.

There's a difference between "popular" and "important" (and "acclaimed" for that matter) and lists like this always throw them all together.

Important books include some that, today, are trash -- like Brook's Shannara fantasy -- derivative, maybe one or two semi-decent books of the whole lot, and the first one was basically a thinly veiled LoTR ripoff. But before he wrote it, modern fantasy was just Conan and Lord of the Rings.

That said, I'd put Canticle for Leibowitz a lot higher on that list.

Wow I missed this somehow. You are giving him way too much credit, and way too little to Moorcock, Leiber, LeGuin, Vance, McCaffery, Anderson, and DOZENS of other better writers who preceded Brooks to bookshelves.

Morat is correct in spirit.  Brooks (and Donaldson) is credited with basically saving fantasy publishing, and blazing the path for everybody that came after to actually make a living writing fantasy.  There were alot of great fantasy authors, they were just either poor or couldn't quit their day jobs until the fantasy market kicked up.

Guys like Leiber (who I really like) were basically in the same boat as Lovecraft and Howard decades ago:  poor and living from check to check on short stories sold.  Zelazny had a day job, and then he churned out paycheck work (or slapped his name on books "co-written" with other people).  Moorcock has been whoring out Elric for ages even though he killed the character in the first serials.  Cook had a day job.  

Most of the rest tended to also write Scifi, which was much more lucrative.


Basically, the entire '90s "fat fantasy" trend wouldn't exist without Brooks including Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin.

[Salamok]

I don't see a good argument for excluding King, frankly.

As for how Goodkind ends up on the list, he's fucking popular for some unknown reason, and the list was generated by a poll.

There's a difference between "popular" and "important" (and "acclaimed" for that matter) and lists like this always throw them all together.

Important books include some that, today, are trash -- like Brook's Shannara fantasy -- derivative, maybe one or two semi-decent books of the whole lot, and the first one was basically a thinly veiled LoTR ripoff. But before he wrote it, modern fantasy was just Conan and Lord of the Rings.

That said, I'd put Canticle for Leibowitz a lot higher on that list.

Wow I missed this somehow. You are giving him way too much credit, and way too little to Moorcock, Leiber, LeGuin, Vance, McCaffery, Anderson, and DOZENS of other better writers who preceded Brooks to bookshelves.

Morat is correct in spirit.  Brooks (and Donaldson) is credited with basically saving fantasy publishing, and blazing the path for everybody that came after to actually make a living writing fantasy.  There were alot of great fantasy authors, they were just either poor or couldn't quit their day jobs until the fantasy market kicked up.

Guys like Leiber (who I really like) were basically in the same boat as Lovecraft and Howard decades ago:  poor and living from check to check on short stories sold.  Zelazny had a day job, and then he churned out paycheck work (or slapped his name on books "co-written" with other people).  Moorcock has been whoring out Elric for ages even though he killed the character in the first serials.  Cook had a day job.  

Most of the rest tended to also write Scifi, which was much more lucrative.


Basically, the entire '90s "fat fantasy" trend wouldn't exist without Brooks including Jordan, Goodkind, and Martin.

I would give as much credit to the young adult fantasy authors for rekindling the fantasy flame, Piers Anthony probably brought in more new readers to the genre than Brooks ever did.  Donaldson was targeting a higher age group and definitely gave the Norton, Zelazny, McCaffrey, Moorcock, Ellison generation something new.  Eddings and Feist certainly helped sustain things until WoT came along, Cook was fine and all but his books weren't exactly best sellers if they were he would not have needed that day job as Eddings certainly made a shit load of money during the same time period.

[bhodi]

Why would The Silmarillion even be on that list? Some of those books read more like a "I recognize the name of this!" rather than someone who's ever read it. Also, the Time Traveler's Wife? Really?

Some good books there, though.

[Sky]

I read the first book, oh, about ten years ago.  I cracked it open in the bookstore and gave it a quick scan and decided the prose was smooth and unstilted and, hey, this looks like the standard-issue teenager with older wizard mentor, what's the worst that could happen?  Sold!

I also picked up the Wizard's First Rule, got it for free out of the recycle bin at the library. For some reason it's still on my shelf, but really needs to go back in the bin. I got about far enough to see it looked like standard-issue teenager with older wizard mentor and said "fuck this". So tired of the old fantasy tropes.

And that list reminds me of how much I dislike politics in my sci-fi/fantasy. I've read too damned much of that list :) But it's really like any popularity list, which may or may not be worse than an editor's list (I'm looking at you, Rolling Stone's top 50 guitarists or 500 songs). Just made to get people stirred up. My personal opinion is the Moorcock is way too low, for he opened the door out of The Shire for me when I was young, to the horror of my babysitter who had turned me on to Tolkein. I think Erikson's thematic rambling cost him despite his good writing skills. No Cook is a crime, but again, I see the Black Company novel with 14-yr-old eyes and cannot be objective. But I'd also put Howard higher, too.

Speaking of awful books, right now I'm struggling through the wretched "Deceived" by Paul S Kemp, apparently based on the Blur trailer for TOR. From the tropey Smuggler with a heart of gold just running drugs to buy his kid a wheelchair to the shitty portrayal of a Sith (hint: they like anger, and use it! Kemp doesn't seem to understand this...) which is painfully highlighted after reading the pretty good Karpyshyn Darth Bane trilogy. Beyond that it's just poorly written, the pacing is bizarre, the word selection thesauriffic. I want to get into some backstory for the game and the Karpyshyn stuff had me excited to play a Sith. Kemp has me excited to not read his book (glancing longingly at the Esselmont up on deck). Also, he refers to himself as a "Fictioneer", the pompous ponce.

[Rendakor]

After hearing everyone here talk about them so much, I picked up the first Culture novel last night; only read the first few chapters so far but it seems interesting enough. Also starting yet another reread of WoT; I haven't touched the Sanderson books yet, and I figure by the time I've caught up the last book will finally be coming out.

[Johny Cee]

Apologies in advance for Sirbrucing this.

I would give as much credit to the young adult fantasy authors for rekindling the fantasy flame, Piers Anthony probably brought in more new readers to the genre than Brooks ever did. 

No.

1.  YA reading doesn't have that much to do with adult reading habits.  YA fantasy, from The Wizard of Oz to Pooh to Narnia to whatever, was always pretty popular.  But most adults didn't continue reading in the genre, just like plenty of kids read comics but a tiny fraction of those went on to read comics as adults.

Look at the Goosebumps books.  Millions upon millions of Goosebumps books were sold during their heyday in the '90s.  How many of those readers dived straight into Horror books when they were older?  Judging by the fact that the Horror category market has been shriveling not too many... 

2.  The whole point of Shannara's legacy is that it opened the mainstream door for Adult fantasy.  It was the first paperback fantasy to make the NYT Bestseller list, the flagship title for the Del Rey imprint, and proved to publishers there was a market for adult fantasy.  The books literally opened the door for "fantasy" to become it's own genre section, rather than science fiction's retarded little brother that no one particularly liked.

The wiki page on Shannara pretty adequately documents the books effect:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Shannara#Literary_significance_and_reception

3.  Shannara pretty much established "Epic Fantasy" as the standard for adult fantasy works.  For comparison, how many "portal fantasies" (people from the real world go through a magic portal into a fairy tale land) do we see anymore?  The only major recent ones I can think of are Lev Grossman's The Magician and The Magician King, which are really hybrids of wizard school/urban fantasy/portal fantasy.

That meant that publishers were willing to take a chance and give big pushes to whomever came after, rather than relegating those authors to pulpy limited releases.



I'm not saying the Sword of Shannara was particularly good.  I read it years ago and went "meh?"  You can't really ignore the fact that, if Tolkien opened the door, Brooks was the one that showed there was a reason for everyone else to pile on through and go rummaging in the closet.  Although, to be pedantic, you could probably point out The Worm Ouroboros beat LOTR to print by a couple of decades.

[Ingmar]

There are way too few quotes in your post for it to be a SirBruce.

[Johny Cee]

There are way too few quotes in your post for it to be a SirBruce.

SirBruce was famous for two things:  mulit-quoting, and picking out single lines from a paragraph to respond to in an out-of-context fashion.


I was actually going to multi-quote, then thought better of it.  It was still pulling one sentence from a paragraph, though.

[WayAbvPar]

There are way too few quotes in your post for it to be a SirBruce.

SirBruce was famous for two things:  mulit-quoting, and picking out single lines from a paragraph to respond to in an out-of-context fashion.


I was actually going to multi-quote, then thought better of it.  It was still pulling one sentence from a paragraph, though.

Also- fucking things with fur on them.

[Talpidae]

 

[Sky]

Despite the poor writing in "Deceived", I'm still planning on forging ahead with my reading project: All EU novels, in order.

I'm scared.

[Ingmar]

Despite the poor writing in "Deceived", I'm still planning on forging ahead with my reading project: All EU novels, in order.

I'm scared.

You're mad, Frink.

[Sky]

Going to start with Lost Tribes of the Sith, free episodic ebooks. Really scared.

http://www.starwars.com/fans/downloads/

[Paelos]

Don't do it!

[Ingmar]

Maybe I should read them all too, and we can start a blog. We could do a Point/Counter Point:

Ingmar: I thought this book sucked ass.

Sky: I agree completely.

[Sky]

I hope I can stretch the ebooks and Fatal Alliance. No copies of Red Harvest or Knight Errant in the system. SW books are popular, so my fiancee is going to fill in any gaps as I go through the list.

I'm torn whether this is good or bad. 

Ingmar, I did enjoy Karpyshyn's Darth Bane trilogy. It was a decent portrayal of the dark side without getting too cartoony (as Kemp did). It's pulpy, but given the source material, I'm not going to hold that against any of the books. And to be fair to Kemp, he did wrap the book up pretty well. In the hands of a good writer, it could've been pretty interesting.

[Salamok]

In the hands of a good writer, it could've been pretty interesting.

Now that is an awesome book review.

[Sheepherder]

Also starting yet another reread of WoT; I haven't touched the Sanderson books yet, and I figure by the time I've caught up the last book will finally be coming out.

Pay close attention right around book 4.  I think I've isolated the exact moment it started to go horribly fucking wrong, and independent confirmation would be appreciated.

Although looking at the page counts for each book, I suspect my conclusions are accurate.

Also, Jordan's last book and Sanderson's first are both surprisingly high quality.

[Salamok]

Also, Jordan's last book and Sanderson's first are both surprisingly high quality.

Is Jordan's last book the one where he had the plot split so many ways that it seemed like there was 1 chapter for each character and they were all working on something different?

[Sky]

Pay close attention right around book 4.  I think I've isolated the exact moment it started to go horribly fucking wrong, and independent confirmation would be appreciated.

Book 5: Fires of Heaven.

Enough said.

[Rasix]

Dumai's Wells.  Literary shark jumping at its finest.

[Morat20]

My wife is currently reading this piece of amusing literature. "Fawn Forest ISD" is, well, a thinly veiled reference to the school district I live in (and my wife works for).

The writer was a counselor at one of the junior highs or elementary schools (fuck if I can remember -- wasn't the high school) and got fired. And then wrote a truly horrible book that's basically character assasination from one end to the other. My wife's actually met some of the people she's badmouthing.

The book blurb:

For more than thirty years, Jaylyn Rose has been a teacher and middle school counselor. She’s proud of being able to make a difference in hundreds of students’ lives, and she’s having one of her best years ever. Then a new principal shows up and throws Jaylyn’s world completely off balance.

Known to staff as “the witch,” the principal at Fawn Forest Independent School District is nothing short of a bully, and Jaylyn doesn’t back down from bullies. But confronting the witch backfires, and the school district moves Jaylyn to a lesser position. Shaken by the mistreatment from the witch and the district, Jaylyn seeks justice. But discovering a wicked and fraudulent system is not what she anticipated …

Unwilling to accept the school’s disingenuous excuse for her removal, Jaylyn launches an investigation into the tainted school district and determines to root out the corruption. Tackling roadblocks, lies, and the supremacy of the superintendent—aka the wizard—Jaylyn discovers she is not alone in her endeavor as other colleagues come forward with their own sordid tales.

Fighting as an underdog against such a powerful school system isn’t easy, but Jaylyn doesn’t have a choice. Her personality demands that she fight for her career and reputation, exposing terrible indiscretions of powerful people along the way.

Amusingly, everyone likes the 'witch' -- except, of course, the fired counsellor. The wicked and fraudulent system is amusing as shit, and of course in real life she just got fired and went away. She did not, sadly, launch a personal investigation into "the wizard". Who, unless she was fired more than ten years ago, I actually know.

He taught my junior high English class. Really nice guy.

The lady is fucking batshit, and apparently someone in the district bought a copy of the book and it's being passed around. :)

[HaemishM]

Check the publisher on her paperback. It's self-pubbed by iUniverse. Any insane person can publish their own book these days. 

[Johny Cee]

Also, Jordan's last book and Sanderson's first are both surprisingly high quality.

Is Jordan's last book the one where he had the plot split so many ways that it seemed like there was 1 chapter for each character and they were all working on something different?

Jordan's last book was Knife of Dreams, which was judged by his remaining fans as the best book in a long time.  I think you're talking about Crossroads of Twilight, where literally nothing happened and the narrative followed all the characters no one cares about.

[Teleku]

Why would The Silmarillion even be on that list? Some of those books read more like a "I recognize the name of this!" rather than someone who's ever read it. Also, the Time Traveler's Wife? Really?

Some good books there, though.

Quite you!  The Silmarillion remains one of my favorite books.

As for the Wheel of Time, I find it funny that when trying to pick where the series started going wrong, all 3 of you picked a different book, heh. 

I thought the series was great up through book 5.  After rereads, I've determined that it was Book 6 where things started to go wrong, though book 6 itself was ok.  What went wrong is that book 6 was the start of everything bogging down.  Before this point, the story narration was split between only a few groups, with many of the main characters still together.  In book 6, everybody went off on their own, with there own special group of side characters.  Matt, Perrin, Rand, Egwene, ect.  The narration became so split up that the overal plot advancement slowed to a crawl, even after 1,000 pages.  I mean, Matt and Perrin both got sent on their adventures down south in book 6, and neither of the fuckers finished up and came back from those trips until books 11/12.  So basically instead of characters adventuring and moving forward, they all got bog down in one setting for thousands of pages.  In the early books, they were constantly fighting and adventuring across half the world.

Dumai's Wells.  Literary shark jumping at its finest.

What was wrong with Dumai's well?  I thought that was the redeeming part of the book.

[Salamok]

If I ever reread the WoT i'm going to try and document every new plot element that gets introduced.

[Rasix]

Dumai's Wells.  Literary shark jumping at its finest.

What was wrong with Dumai's well?  I thought that was the redeeming part of the book.

Perhaps, I'm misusing the term a bit.  

From the wikipedia page:

Jon Hein, creator of the now defunct website 'jumptheshark.com' explained the concept as follows: "It's a moment. A defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same."[5]

It was pretty much the last hurrah (at the time) for a series that was already starting to get a bit stale (parts of book 6 were pretty damn boring).  Anyhow, the series went into a tailspin after that.  3000 pages of tedium before it recovered.  Happy it did, even if parts of Towers of Midnight seem somewhat clumsily done (in the middle of reading it).

[Sheepherder]

Pay close attention right around book 4.  I think I've isolated the exact moment it started to go horribly fucking wrong, and independent confirmation would be appreciated.

Book 5: Fires of Heaven.

Enough said.

I'm talking about when we found a growth on his neck, not when it metastasized to his brain.

[Ingmar]

I always thought jumping the shark meant "when something that was cool suddenly becomes completely stupid," interesting.

[Paelos]

I read all of Jordan's stuff through mid-way into Book 6 recently. Got bogged down in that book, and then Dance of Dragons came out.