Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 09:31:30 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
we're back, baby
*
Home Help Search Login Register
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Topic: Return of the Book Thread 0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.
Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 192 Go Down Print
Author Topic: Return of the Book Thread  (Read 1286196 times)
Triforcer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4663


Reply #875 on: October 15, 2007, 07:14:18 PM

Nobody here read the first book of the new Drizzt trilogy, The Orc King.  PLEASE DON'T.  I think its the worst book I've read since one of Piers Anthony's pedo-fests.  Its fucking obvious that Salvatore has no clue what to do with the characters anymore.  Also, it gives away the plotlines for all Forgotten Realms books for the next 100 years and tells us how his companions die in the future!  Don't read this unless you like getting pounded in the nuts by a sack filled with angry cats and screaming babies. 

All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu.  This is the truth!  This is my belief! At least for now...
Lt.Dan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 758


Reply #876 on: October 15, 2007, 08:08:36 PM

The thing is - you read it to find out it was shit...c'mon, you're not 12 anymore; what hope did you have?

I liked Wizard's First Rule since it was a different spin on magic.  I read a few more but then it started getting really really formulaic.  Oh noes some new thing that was mentioned once in the previous book is going to destroy the world and only Dora the Explorer can save us. Bleah.
Morat20
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18529


Reply #877 on: October 16, 2007, 09:34:00 AM

I liked Spin. In fact, I like most of Wilson's stuff quite a bit. The sequel, Axis, just came out although I haven't picked it up yet.

And I can't be certain, but I believe Wizard's First Rule is the book that put me off of fantasy when I read the first 60 pages when it first came out. Haven't picked up a fantasy book since.
I didn't know he'd written a sequel. I think I liked Accelerando a bit better than Spin, but I've always had a weakness for Singularity novels. (Admittedly, my first was A Fire Upon the Deep -- not only classic, but I was active in Usenet so I recognized the type of twits he was mocking. Sadly, I was at least one of them.).

I'll have to pick that up.

If you want fantasy......hell, I'm not sure I could name any really outstanding fantasy that's fairly recent, at least among the adult stuff. Sci-fi seems to be a bit ascendent right now, unless you like Gothic Pseudo-Lesbian Vampire Mysteries, which is apparently a HUGE market right now.
Murgos
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7474


Reply #878 on: October 16, 2007, 11:01:16 AM

I've always had a weakness for Singularity novels.

Any day now, right?   cool

I'm hoping for a Culture outcome where I can be pampered into surreal boredom by super-intelligent super computers that can manipulate reality to suit my whims, indefinitely or, at least until I decide to ascend.  Funny that Banks posits a second singularity (Ascendancy) in his Singularity influenced work.

"You have all recieved youre last warning. I am in the process of currently tracking all of youre ips and pinging your home adressess. you should not have commencemed a war with me" - Aaron Rayburn
Rishathra
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1059


Reply #879 on: October 16, 2007, 11:17:54 AM

I'm hoping for a Culture outcome where I can be pampered into surreal boredom by super-intelligent super computers that can manipulate reality to suit my whims, indefinitely or, at least until I decide to ascend.
Yeah, I'm hoping for that one, too.  Really I'm just hoping in general that a Singularity of any form is coming, and soon, because otherwise I don't see much hope for our survival as a species.

"...you'll still be here trying to act cool while actually being a bored and frustrated office worker with a vibrating anger-valve puffing out internet hostility." - Falconeer
"That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said." - Trippy
Chenghiz
Terracotta Army
Posts: 868


Reply #880 on: October 16, 2007, 01:02:56 PM

I'm hoping for a Culture outcome where I can be pampered into surreal boredom by super-intelligent super computers that can manipulate reality to suit my whims, indefinitely or, at least until I decide to ascend.
Yeah, I'm hoping for that one, too.  Really I'm just hoping in general that a Singularity of any form is coming, and soon, because otherwise I don't see much hope for our survival as a species.

Oh don't be so sad.
stray
Terracotta Army
Posts: 16818

has an iMac.


Reply #881 on: October 16, 2007, 01:05:10 PM

For realz.
Morat20
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18529


Reply #882 on: October 16, 2007, 01:54:22 PM

I've always had a weakness for Singularity novels.

Any day now, right?   cool
Are you kidding? I'm north of 30 now. I'm on the wrong side.

Quote
I'm hoping for a Culture outcome where I can be pampered into surreal boredom by super-intelligent super computers that can manipulate reality to suit my whims, indefinitely or, at least until I decide to ascend.  Funny that Banks posits a second singularity (Ascendancy) in his Singularity influenced work.
Let us just say that if a GSV dropped by tomorrow taking applicants for citizenship, I'd be the first to sign up. And not entirely for the drug glands. :)
Johny Cee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3454


Reply #883 on: October 16, 2007, 03:17:36 PM

I liked Spin. In fact, I like most of Wilson's stuff quite a bit. The sequel, Axis, just came out although I haven't picked it up yet.

And I can't be certain, but I believe Wizard's First Rule is the book that put me off of fantasy when I read the first 60 pages when it first came out. Haven't picked up a fantasy book since.
I didn't know he'd written a sequel. I think I liked Accelerando a bit better than Spin, but I've always had a weakness for Singularity novels. (Admittedly, my first was A Fire Upon the Deep -- not only classic, but I was active in Usenet so I recognized the type of twits he was mocking. Sadly, I was at least one of them.).

I'll have to pick that up.

If you want fantasy......hell, I'm not sure I could name any really outstanding fantasy that's fairly recent, at least among the adult stuff. Sci-fi seems to be a bit ascendent right now, unless you like Gothic Pseudo-Lesbian Vampire Mysteries, which is apparently a HUGE market right now.

Scifi is still bleeding authors to fantasy,  which outsells it, and the sales have been declining.  Interesting blog posts on this:

http://www.jackofravens.com/2007/10/14/richard-dawkins-is-killing-sf/
http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/

(Wheeler's blog, link two, has a fair amount of interesting matieral.  Wheeler is a former Scifi Book Club editor,  and he writes about sales trends aand popular taste trends a bit.)

"Urban fantasy" has pretty much buried traditional fantasy, sales-wise, though.  Urban Fantasy, as a genre, ranges from vampire erotica to modern alt-history stuff.  Some of it is awful, like the Hamilton stuff.  Some of it is pretty entertaining,  like Butcher's "Dresden" books or Charlie Huston's books. 

People like De Lint also get shoe-horned into this category.

Speculative Fiction has been bleeding authors from traditional scifi as well.  Grimwood, Mieville, Hal Duncan, etc. would have probably been straight scifi authors before this genre really emerged.

As for new adult fantasy:

The Name of the WindAcacia, Winterbirth, The Blade Itself, and Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora have all been pushed in the last year.  I enjoyed both Lies and Name of the Wind quite a bit,  wasn't so hot on Blade,  still have Acacia on pile to read and need to pick up Winterbirth.

Going back a couple of years,  Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is a great book.  Part Napolean-era historical fiction, with a heavy amount of traditional English fairy story tossed in.  Bujold's Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls are both top notch.
Salamok
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2803


Reply #884 on: October 16, 2007, 03:21:04 PM

"Urban fantasy" has pretty much buried traditional fantasy, sales-wise, though.  Urban Fantasy, as a genre, ranges from vampire erotica to modern alt-history stuff.  Some of it is awful, like the Hamilton stuff.  Some of it is pretty entertaining,  like Butcher's "Dresden" books or Charlie Huston's books. 

People like De Lint also get shoe-horned into this category.

Seems like it wouldn't take much of a shoe horn to get De Lint classified as "Urban Fantasy".
Lt.Dan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 758


Reply #885 on: October 16, 2007, 03:47:49 PM

Everytime I go to the library or bookshop looking for a fantasy novel I'm disappointed and inevitably wind up walking away with something sci-fi.  Fantasy is in a rut right now.  It's full of cliched, stale ideas and is being killed by a glut of pulpy multi-book epics.  Someone really needs to break the mould and do something interesting in the genre, preferably avoiding prophecy, children born to save the world, evil evil evil powers, and hack fantasy themes from the DMG.  Those things were really cool the first time you read LoTR or Eddings, but 20 years on not so much.
Johny Cee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3454


Reply #886 on: October 16, 2007, 04:15:08 PM

"Urban fantasy" has pretty much buried traditional fantasy, sales-wise, though.  Urban Fantasy, as a genre, ranges from vampire erotica to modern alt-history stuff.  Some of it is awful, like the Hamilton stuff.  Some of it is pretty entertaining,  like Butcher's "Dresden" books or Charlie Huston's books. 

People like De Lint also get shoe-horned into this category.

Seems like it wouldn't take much of a shoe horn to get De Lint classified as "Urban Fantasy".


Well... yah.  He was really one of the first urban fantasy writers, but....

De Lint is telling a story,  and the story has fantastical elements which serve to develop whatever the underlying theme (estrangement from modern consumer society) or character development (dealing with the reprecussions of domestic/child abuse) is.  Urban fantasy has morphed into "bunch of modern-fantasy shit, with maybe a little plot or story thrown in....  which we will cut out if we need to put more hawt supernatural love."

Basically,  the genre he was in morphed into something that really isn't like the tone or substance of his books.  His writing shares more simularities with what's now classified as speculative fiction.
Rishathra
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1059


Reply #887 on: October 17, 2007, 08:50:09 AM

Oh don't be so sad.
Umm, yeah.  That came off way more depressing than I intended.  Basically, I'm really looking forward to sentient supercomputers running everyone's lives.  The Terminator movies have it all wrong.

"...you'll still be here trying to act cool while actually being a bored and frustrated office worker with a vibrating anger-valve puffing out internet hostility." - Falconeer
"That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said." - Trippy
Morat20
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18529


Reply #888 on: October 17, 2007, 09:11:17 AM

Scifi is still bleeding authors to fantasy,  which outsells it, and the sales have been declining. 
Frankly, I don't doubt it. What I'm not seeing, however, is much good fantasy. I am seeing a lot of good sci-fi, right now.
Engels
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9029

inflicts shingles.


Reply #889 on: October 17, 2007, 04:29:54 PM

But more seriously, there was a copy in the house and I had the idea that it would be a good poetic read. I've recently been practicing reading things aloud (because I just like the spoken word) and thought it would be a good book for it. It's probably not the best choice for it and I'd be better off reading 'Paradise Lost' or something, but it's still enjoyable.

Actually, that's one of the best reasons I've ever heard for reading the Devine Comedy.

As an aside on the Goodkind topic, why is it that every Sci-Fi Objectivist/Randian/Self-Made Arsehole sci-fi fan & author I've met/read is also into wierd bondage nonsense and pervy sex?

I should get back to nature, too.  You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer.  Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached.  Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe

I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa

Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19212

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #890 on: October 17, 2007, 10:59:30 PM

Currently reading Dante (Still on Inferno), which is.. I dunno. The translation is Mandelbaum's and it's enjoyable

After you read each canto, read the notes on it that explain all the allegories and references, and then reread it.  That's how I read it when I was reading it for class; it was the only way I could absorb the meaning of each canto.

Also, I highly recommend getting the Sayers edition, ESPECIALLY if you're reading it aloud (which is how I read it my second time through).  Sayers' translation tries to preserve the rhyme scheme and meter of the original so that it still feels like a poem.  Some of the phrasing ends up a bit more awkward than in other translations, but you get a better feel for what a listener in Dante's time would have gotten from it, I think.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021


Reply #891 on: October 17, 2007, 11:36:53 PM

Currently reading Dante (Still on Inferno), which is.. I dunno. The translation is Mandelbaum's and it's enjoyable

After you read each canto, read the notes on it that explain all the allegories and references, and then reread it.  That's how I read it when I was reading it for class; it was the only way I could absorb the meaning of each canto.

I've done a bit of that, but it's easier to do when I'm reading a canto or two a night. When I'm reading for a longer period the habit breaks it up a bit much.

Quote
Also, I highly recommend getting the Sayers edition, ESPECIALLY if you're reading it aloud (which is how I read it my second time through).  Sayers' translation tries to preserve the rhyme scheme and meter of the original so that it still feels like a poem.  Some of the phrasing ends up a bit more awkward than in other translations, but you get a better feel for what a listener in Dante's time would have gotten from it, I think.

I was actually talking about it with my Dad this morning and he says that there's really no comparison between the Italian and the English. Moreover we agreed that there was little point in a literal translation, as the associations of certain Italian words are not maintained when translated literally to English. (One example he gave was from the third line of the first canto, where the English word would have been 'smudged' and not at all in keeping with the feeling it has in Italian).

The version I'm reading is in blank verse (didn't count it out, just my feeling from the reading), which suits me fine. I wouldn't want to labor through awkward rhymes for the the sake of rhymes. Considering how hard English is to rhyme compared to Italian it would probably hinder the poetry more than anything else - or so I assume.
Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19212

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #892 on: October 17, 2007, 11:48:41 PM

You'd think it'd be impossible, but Sayers does a pretty damn good job.  I can't find my copies anywhere so they must be at work... I'll see if I can post a few representative lines tomorrow.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Raph
Developers
Posts: 1472

Title delayed while we "find the fun."


WWW
Reply #893 on: October 18, 2007, 12:01:51 PM

If you hang out here, you really should read HALTING STATE, by Charles Stross.

2nd person may bug you, but try to push thru it. :)
Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449

Badge Whore


Reply #894 on: October 18, 2007, 06:24:46 PM

As an aside on the Goodkind topic, why is it that every Sci-Fi Objectivist/Randian/Self-Made Arsehole sci-fi fan & author I've met/read is also into wierd bondage nonsense and pervy sex?

Considering most of them are into being dominated? The loss of control and being forced to give-up your freedom in such a way releases them from their type-A persona.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Samwise
Moderator
Posts: 19212

sentient yeast infection


WWW
Reply #895 on: October 18, 2007, 08:20:41 PM

Quote
Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Ay me!  how hard to speak of it -- that rude
And rough and stubborn forest!  the mere breath
Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey
The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

How I got into it I cannot say,
Because I was so heavy and full of sleep
When first I stumbled from the narrow way.

"I have not actually recommended many games, and I'll go on the record here saying my track record is probably best in the industry." - schild
Rishathra
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1059


Reply #896 on: October 18, 2007, 10:40:16 PM

If you hang out here, you really should read HALTING STATE, by Charles Stross.

2nd person may bug you, but try to push thru it. :)
Agreed.  Stross is good enough that it didn't really bother me that much, but I found it unnecessary.  Am I just not enough of a literature snob to understand why he did that?

"...you'll still be here trying to act cool while actually being a bored and frustrated office worker with a vibrating anger-valve puffing out internet hostility." - Falconeer
"That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said." - Trippy
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345


WWW
Reply #897 on: October 18, 2007, 11:11:09 PM

I kinda want to point out that I find both Gaiman and Gibson nearly unreadable. I think a big part of it is that somehow, even though their books are short, they all feel padded with bullshit. Descriptions run too long. Dialog is too plain. Plots are just silly.

As writers, sure, I guess they're fine. Still better than 90% of the shit out there.

I just can't stand them. That said, I can't stand fantasy at all really anymore. It just bores me to fucking tears. Modern fantasy or fantasy with a modern bend drives me even more nuts. American Gods drives me up the fucking wall.

Ironically, I loved what I played of Dreamfall.

So, eh. >_> I liked - nay, loved - Lucky Wander Boy. So I can't be trusted.
Raph
Developers
Posts: 1472

Title delayed while we "find the fun."


WWW
Reply #898 on: October 18, 2007, 11:31:41 PM

If you hang out here, you really should read HALTING STATE, by Charles Stross.

2nd person may bug you, but try to push thru it. :)
Agreed.  Stross is good enough that it didn't really bother me that much, but I found it unnecessary.  Am I just not enough of a literature snob to understand why he did that?

He did it so that it would read like a game. Or feel like a game. Whatever. Like an old adventure game.
Endie
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6436


WWW
Reply #899 on: October 19, 2007, 03:15:27 AM

Currently reading Dante (Still on Inferno), which is.. I dunno. The translation is Mandelbaum's and it's enjoyable

After you read each canto, read the notes on it that explain all the allegories and references, and then reread it.  That's how I read it when I was reading it for class; it was the only way I could absorb the meaning of each canto.

Also, I highly recommend getting the Sayers edition, ESPECIALLY if you're reading it aloud (which is how I read it my second time through).  Sayers' translation tries to preserve the rhyme scheme and meter of the original so that it still feels like a poem.  Some of the phrasing ends up a bit more awkward than in other translations, but you get a better feel for what a listener in Dante's time would have gotten from it, I think.

I cannot agree more with Samwise about the Sayers edition.  It is available really cheaply in Penguin Classics, and flows wonderfully.

Catching the allusions is obviously tricky.  I tend to read the notes in advance, and even then to skip back and forth for refreshers while reading, but that does break up the flow of the poem a lot.

My blog: http://endie.net

Twitter - Endieposts

"What else would one expect of Scottish sociopaths sipping their single malt Glenlivit [sic]?" Jack Thompson
lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021


Reply #900 on: October 19, 2007, 04:10:16 AM

Quote
Midway this way of life we're bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Ay me!  how hard to speak of it -- that rude
And rough and stubborn forest!  the mere breath
Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood;

It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;
Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey
The tale, I'll write what else I found therewith.

How I got into it I cannot say,
Because I was so heavy and full of sleep
When first I stumbled from the narrow way.

To compare. The Mandelbaum:

Quote
When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.

Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
that savage forest, dense and difficult,
which even in recall renews my fear:

so bitter--death is hardly more severe!
But to retell the good discovered there,
I'll also tell the other things I saw.

I cannot clearly say how I had entered
the wood; I was so full of sleep just at
the point where I abandoned the true path.

From the limited sample i think I prefer the Mandelbaum. I think blank verse is better suited to such a long narrative.

Darn typos.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2007, 04:24:39 AM by lamaros »
Endie
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6436


WWW
Reply #901 on: October 19, 2007, 06:57:12 AM

When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.

Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
that savage forest, dense and difficult,
which even in recall renews my fear:

so bitter--death is hardly more severe!
But to retell the good discovered there,
I'll also tell the other things I saw.

I cannot clearly say how I had entered
the wood; I was so full of sleep just at
the point where I abandoned the true path.

From the limited sample i think I prefer the Mandelbaum. I think blank verse is better suited to such a long narrative.

A bit wordy.  Let's tighten that sucker up a bit:

Quote
Dear Diary,

Hit a bit of a mid-life crisis today.  Aaaaand got lost in a bloody wood, to boot.  Stupid maps.  Bloody terrifying it was I'll tell you, and no mistake.  Do you know if there are bears here?  Anyway, bit sleepy: think I'll have a kip.  Nighty night!
« Last Edit: October 19, 2007, 06:59:22 AM by Endie »

My blog: http://endie.net

Twitter - Endieposts

"What else would one expect of Scottish sociopaths sipping their single malt Glenlivit [sic]?" Jack Thompson
Rishathra
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1059


Reply #902 on: October 19, 2007, 09:41:39 AM

He did it so that it would read like a game. Or feel like a game. Whatever. Like an old adventure game.
That was my first assumption, but I figured Stross was above that kind of cheese, so I dropped that theory.   Oops.

Still an excellent read though.

"...you'll still be here trying to act cool while actually being a bored and frustrated office worker with a vibrating anger-valve puffing out internet hostility." - Falconeer
"That looks like English but I have no idea what you just said." - Trippy
Abagadro
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12227

Possibly the only user with more posts in the Den than PC/Console Gaming.


Reply #903 on: October 20, 2007, 09:55:55 PM

Finishing up John C. Wright's "Golden Age" trilogy.  Hard scifi with a heavy mythic base.  Very good.  Feels like old school scifi in that Wright uses advanced technology to debate moral and sociological values,  especially in regards to rights and freedoms in context with increasing technology in an essentially libertarian society.

Unlike most modern scifi,  Wright seems to have a decent grasp of modern social science theory. 

I'm now on my third attempt to start the Golden Age. Those first 50 pages are so esoteric that it just isn't grabbing me.

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

-H.L. Mencken
Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009

wants a greif tittle


Reply #904 on: October 22, 2007, 12:48:11 PM

As for SciFi I just finished reading Grey by Jon Armstrong . It was decent. Very weird, but a fun quick read. And TH1RTE3N by Richard Morgan. Also decent, had a section near the middle that was horribly depressing, but still a decent read.

As to Fantasy, I like Glen Cooks newest series Instrumentalities of the Night. I just finished book 2 Lords of the Silent Kingdom.

I am currently reading Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett, which is pretty good. I mean, its Warhammer 40k, so pretty cheesy, but Dan Abnett is a better writer than most game to novel writers.
murdoc
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3036


Reply #905 on: October 22, 2007, 01:01:54 PM


As to Fantasy, I like Glen Cooks newest series Instrumentalities of the Night. I just finished book 2 Lords of the Silent Kingdom.


I have that book sitting on a shelf at home waiting for me to crack open. I found the first one to be wtf confusing, I need a wiki article somewhere that says who is exactly who and who they're fighting.

Have you tried the internet? It's made out of millions of people missing the point of everything and then getting angry about it
HRose
I'm Special
Posts: 1205

VIKLAS!


WWW
Reply #906 on: October 22, 2007, 05:02:56 PM

I just can't stand them. That said, I can't stand fantasy at all really anymore. It just bores me to fucking tears. Modern fantasy or fantasy with a modern bend drives me even more nuts.
Did you read good old Black Company?

Fantasy is a problematic genre because it's filled with crap, and the most popular stuff (so visible) is often the worse. Johny Cee provided a list of really great stuff that is supposed to work even and in particular for bored fantasy readers.

I was a bored fantasy reader, stopped read fantasy for nearly eight years. Now I'm back and I have a huge pile of awesome to read.

There's good stuff, but you have to dig it.

-HRose / Abalieno
cesspit.net
Johny Cee
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3454


Reply #907 on: October 23, 2007, 02:50:19 PM

I just can't stand them. That said, I can't stand fantasy at all really anymore. It just bores me to fucking tears. Modern fantasy or fantasy with a modern bend drives me even more nuts.
Did you read good old Black Company?

Fantasy is a problematic genre because it's filled with crap, and the most popular stuff (so visible) is often the worse. Johny Cee provided a list of really great stuff that is supposed to work even and in particular for bored fantasy readers.

I was a bored fantasy reader, stopped read fantasy for nearly eight years. Now I'm back and I have a huge pile of awesome to read.

There's good stuff, but you have to dig it.

I think a big issue, in the last 10 or 15 years, is the huge amount of chaff to wade through in fantasy publishing.  The scifi chaff (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) has mostly died down.  TSR/Wizards of the Coast continues to produce huge amounts of marginal quality work that floods the market,  not to mention the look-alike books churned out for the same demographic and the former TSR authors who now churn out medoicre non-branded stuff (Salvatore, the Elminster douchebag). 

My local Borders has a couple racks devoted to the various D&D World knockoffs, MtG novelizations, and related stuff alone.  It's in danger of expanding to a greater shelf space then the entire Horror section.

There are shittons of great quality fantasy.  It's just marketed like shit, packaged like shit, and promoted like shit.

Must read classics (that people haven't):

Wolfe's "New Sun" (or whatever it's called)
Zelazny's "Amber" books
Cook's "Black Company"
Brust's "Vlad Taltos". 
At least a sampling of Pratchett's "Discworld" novels. 

High quality recent works:

Bakker "Prince of Nothing" books.  Dune meets the Crusades.
Erikson "Malazan" books.  New take on epic fantasy. 
Martin "Song of Fire and Ice".  You know the drill on this.
Clarke Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Part historical fiction, part faery story.  If you liked the Baroque Cycle,  you'd probably like this.
Bujold Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls.
Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Sails under Red Skies.  Heist fiction meets the Renaissance,  with modern sensabilities.

That's just more traditionial fantasy.  Books like Vandermeer's (City of Saints and Madmen, etc.) or Harrison's Virconium (which is a fantasy/scifi hybrid) or Hal Duncans' Vellum and Ink or Mieville's books (Marxist dystopian Industrial Age/steam punk) blow right into territories that are usually the domain of scifi.



HRose
I'm Special
Posts: 1205

VIKLAS!


WWW
Reply #908 on: October 23, 2007, 03:14:44 PM

I think a big issue, in the last 10 or 15 years, is the huge amount of chaff to wade through in fantasy publishing.  The scifi chaff (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.) has mostly died down.  TSR/Wizards of the Coast continues to produce huge amounts of marginal quality work that floods the market,  not to mention the look-alike books churned out for the same demographic and the former TSR authors who now churn out medoicre non-branded stuff (Salvatore, the Elminster douchebag). 
That's why we have the internet ;)

I stopped reading fantasy for that reason. I couldn't read through 500 books to find 5 great ones. That's a problem with books in general because it's hard to have a decent idea of what you are going to find.

The internet is the reason why I'm now back into fantasy. In about one month I gathered a wish list of quality stuff. I know what to expect and I'm sure that I'll enjoy it. I can adjust my expectations quite well.

The list is:

- Erikson's Malazan saga
- Martin's Fire and Ice saga
- Bakker's Prince of Nothing
- Glen Cook's Black Company

This is the core. Then the new entries:

- Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series
- Joe Abercrombie trilogy
- Patrick Rothfuss Name of the Wind

And then some sidetracks:

- Jacqueline Carey 3+3 books
- Gap series by Stephen Donaldson
- Mievielle 3 books
- Guy Gavriel Kay stuff
- Miles saga (Lois McMaster Bujold)

This is a HUGE pile of stuff, still tightly selected. It's all almost guaranteed to be really good. More books planned in their relative series, other sidetracks (like Malazan other books).

There's a lot more if you dig enough. I also just read the first book of Jordan and may even read Goodkind for shit and giggles if I ever see the bottom of that pile.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2007, 03:17:35 PM by HRose »

-HRose / Abalieno
cesspit.net
murdoc
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3036


Reply #909 on: October 24, 2007, 06:32:12 AM

Dived into 'Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman this week.

LOVE IT so far, absolutely LOVE IT.

Have you tried the internet? It's made out of millions of people missing the point of everything and then getting angry about it
Pages: 1 ... 24 25 [26] 27 28 ... 192 Go Up Print 
f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Topic: Return of the Book Thread  
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.10 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines LLC