Return of the Book Thread

[Rasix]

The Bean books are absolutely dreadful.  Toward the end, he just can't keep his religion out of it.  That and the plot goes out into la-la land at hyper speed.

[Ironwood]

I cannot stand the revisionist shite that authors and filmmakers are doing these days.  Sure, we all know about Lucas and Spielberg, but Card went back and pretty much rewrote Bean to be better, smarter and more wondrous than Ender.  He knew what was going on first and figured everything out from the 'real' games to the way the Alien hives worked and how to defeat them.

It was utter wank of the highest kind.  Bean was a tit with a chip on his shoulder and that's the way he should have stayed.  Slithering out of a lab as an embryo and making a daring escape was just wow.

[ghost]

I'm sure I'll keep going with these until I just can't stand them, as long as there's an audio version.  I can usually find something good in just about any book, even if it's just a few funny bits here or there.  I think part of Card's issue is that people hold Ender's Game with such reverence, and it even tops a few of the internet lists for the best sci-fi/fantasy book ever.  It's good, but it isn't in my top 25.  

I can see the Bean stuff being shite.  Many of these guys really lose the quality when they feel they've got something good and move into "production" mode, cough cough Terry Brooks, cough cough.  That's why it's so cool to see someone prolific like Lois McMaster Bujold really maintain as she goes along while remaining prolific.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I wonder if after a while an author gets sick of their most famous/well-known/cash cow series and don't want to write it any longer, but they're somehow "required" or "forced" to keep writing?

I was on Amazon last night looking for a specific book.  It's the 3rd in a trilogy where I somehow missed picking it up and now that I'm rereading the series, need completion.  Anyways, I decided to see what other recommendations Amazon had for me and found some new Valdemar anthologies had come out, plus there was already 2 books in a new trilogy released in paperback as well.  Since I like these books and generally enjoy Mercedes Lackey's writing, I checked out the book info and some reviews.

Oh my, apparently she's fallen into "production" mode for these books and the reviews really weren't good at all.  A few even said to skip this set entirely.  Apparently the new trilogy takes place olny 50-ish or so years after another one (the Magic's Price one) and yet there seems to be no continuity, the social awkward, almost idiot "hero" suddenly can do everything perfectly and better than everyone else, he's the only one who can do these things, and of course his ability is the bestest, most powahful EVAR!!  When the reviewers start calling your main character a Mary Sue, something's gone wrong, IMO.  I'll probably pick the books up eventually, but who knows.

[ghost]

I suspect that a lot of these folks do get jaded and bitter after a while.  Writing is a difficult thing to master though.  I have written a book.  It stinks, but I wrote it.  I can feel their pain at having to write volume after volume after volume to support something that their publisher tells them they need to do "for the fans" and they might just rather put a bullet in their own head. 

[Chimpy]

Feist has decided to tank his cash cow series, killing off all of the enjoyable characters, I think to make it so that the publisher can't ask him to write more.

Of course, you could say he decided to tank it about the time of the second 4 part saga :p

It really is impossible for someone to keep on the same story arc for 10-15 years unless they had some massive specific outline at the beginning. Any time you tack shit on it starts evolving to something entirely different.

[Ard]

Feist has decided to tank his cash cow series, killing off all of the enjoyable characters, I think to make it so that the publisher can't ask him to write more.

No, he's just actually ending the story for good finally, and wrapping up all the plot threads he's had hanging over the last 25 years or so.  I think there are three books left to go.  If he'd really wanted to just end and kill the franchise, he could have easily done it like 3 trilogies back, and not drawn this out another 10 years.  A lot of the stuff that's happening in the current series has been foreshadowed back as far at the original trilogy, although most of it comes from the serpent war books and beyond.  He seemed to actually started planning his books ahead further than the book he was currently writing, since that was the first series he wrote that actually had a cohesive story past each given book, instead of just recapping his local dnd campaign.  I'm actually happy to see the overall story have a resolution after 25 years of this.

[Morat20]

From what I heard, all this is basically from a D&D game he and a friend played 40 years ago. One whole 'riftwar' was supposedly to explain why there was a race of Lizard-men living on some Continent.

Part of the gameworld backstory their DM put together was that the world had gone through four or five "riftwars" where monsters from other planets/whatever had invaded, and the world had been effectively blown up and put back together several times.

He made a fortune of a P&P game he played in the 60s. Well done, Sir.

[ghost]

Doesn't all fantasy writing stem from AD&D?

[Johny Cee]

I wonder if after a while an author gets sick of their most famous/well-known/cash cow series and don't want to write it any longer, but they're somehow "required" or "forced" to keep writing?

Authors are "forced" because they like money, and there really are very few authors whose whole body of work is loved by fans.  Donaldson has an appropriate quote, paraphrased as: After the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, I thought Stephen Donaldson had millions of fans.  After the performance of my next novels, I realized that Thomas Covenant has millions of fans who don't really care about the author Stephen Donaldson.

Sure, Stephen King can shit out any old manuscript and have it hit the bestseller list.  Most authors, people only care about the setting/series and characters they like and will give the rest a pass.  That means that, to be a full-time author, you need to churn out the stuff that sells.


A popular sideline for established authors now is churning out tie-in fiction.  Moorcock just wrote a Dr. Who novel, Matthew Stover writes Star Wars tie ins, and numerous hard sf authors with middling sales have written Star Trek/Wars/etc tie ins to pay the bills.

[ghost]

A popular sideline for established authors now is churning out tie-in fiction.  Moorcock just wrote a Dr. Who novel, Matthew Stover writes Star Wars tie ins, and numerous hard sf authors with middling sales have written Star Trek/Wars/etc tie ins to pay the bills.

All of these that i've perused in the bookstore are very 

[Johny Cee]

From what I heard, all this is basically from a D&D game he and a friend played 40 years ago. One whole 'riftwar' was supposedly to explain why there was a race of Lizard-men living on some Continent.

Part of the gameworld backstory their DM put together was that the world had gone through four or five "riftwars" where monsters from other planets/whatever had invaded, and the world had been effectively blown up and put back together several times.

He made a fortune of a P&P game he played in the 60s. Well done, Sir.

40 years ago?  That would predate even the first D&D release.   


Realistically, rpgs are firmly in the wheelhouse of spec fiction authors.  I'm sure that many of them have adapted interesting bits from their game of choice to go into books/series.

The second book of the new Roger Zelazny collection (really, really swanky set by the way) has an introduction that goes into detail about how a group convinced Zelazny and his girlfriend at the time (Jane Lindskold) to join an rpg group that included George Martin, Melinda Snodgrass, and Walter Jon Williams to play a police/investigative rpg. 

I bet they spent alot of time waiting for Martin's turn...

[Salamok]

The second book of the new Roger Zelazny collection (really, really swanky set by the way) has an introduction that goes into detail about how a group convinced Zelazny and his girlfriend at the time (Jane Lindskold) to join an rpg group that included George Martin, Melinda Snodgrass, and Walter Jon Williams to play a police/investigative rpg. 

Isn't this basically how Wild Cards came about?

[Ironwood]

Authors are "forced" because they like money, and there really are very few authors whose whole body of work is loved by fans.  Donaldson has an appropriate quote, paraphrased as: After the first Thomas Covenant trilogy, I thought Stephen Donaldson had millions of fans.  After the performance of my next novels, I realized that Thomas Covenant has millions of fans who don't really care about the author Stephen Donaldson.

This explains why the newest Covenant are horrendous shite.

[Teleku]

I really enjoyed the original Ender....Quadrilogy?  Ender's game through Children of the Mind.  They get a bit slow and trippy at points, but I thought it was great hard sci-fi the whole way through.  You should be sure to finish up that series, as its the original core story.

I've never read any of the other prequel books, though Ironwoods description just removed any motivation I had towards doing so.  But I wouldn't let those get in the way of reading the original series.

[ghost]

This explains why the newest Covenant are horrendous shite.

I'm not a big fan of Donaldson, either the Gap series or the Covenant books.

[tgr]

I loved the Covenant books, the character was so anti-hero.

[ghost]

I prefer the Rincewind kind of anti-hero, not the "I rape 15 year olds" kind. 

[Ingmar]

I prefer the Rincewind kind of anti-hero, not the "I rape 15 year olds" kind. 

Yeah the character moves well beyond anti-hero into 'loathsome bastard'. Loathsome bastard can work as a central character, sometimes (Cugel the Clever for example), but the Thomas Covenant stuff is just thoroughly unpleasant to read.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, but he was meant to be and he had reason.

What's more hard to forgive is how women get written by Donaldson.  Linden was an utter waste of space and never, ever, ever changed.  It showed you exactly what he thought of women.  What's strange is he admits it himself.

[bhodi]

There was a strong female in the Gap series, though. Yeah, Morn is probably the most abused character in the series, but she DOES end up growing, overcoming obstacles, and plays a prominent role in events. She's neither one-dimensional nor a waste of space.

[Ironwood]

Yup.  He'd gotten over the divorce by then.

But then Linden in the new books is also useless.  It's an odd one.

[ghost]

Of course now all this talk has gotten me interested in reading the Gap series again, just to relive its awfulness.   

[Ironwood]

Gap was awesome.

[ghost]

I didn't like it the first time, but then again I haven't read it since the last book came out so it's been 15 years or so.  I often like books better on the second read through.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I had to force myself to read the Gap books again simply because I wanted to know how it all ended up, but they just aren't likable books, IMO.  And while I guess Morn could be considered a strong woman, she's just not likable or even sympathetic, IMO.  I just... I have very few series that I've read, kept the books, but honestly don't like them.  It's weird.

I just finished reading "City of Night" by Michelle West and I really enjoyed it.  It's book 2 of the House War arc, which is part of the same overall series as her Sun Sword books.  Definitely gives new insight into already known events and what was going on in the background with Jewel's den.  The next book "House Name" which came out in hardback in January.  I'm impatient enough that I think I'm going to support Sky and hit up my library to see if they have a copy available.   

I did make the mistake of reading the reviews on Amazon though, most of which just made me    The author made it pretty clear that she's revisiting old history atm, providing more depth into what was going on from the den's PoV, and yet reviewers were bitching about how "House Name" was a rehash of "Hunter's Death".  The next book in the series, "Skirmish", which she's writing now, picks up from when Jewel returns from the South during the war and will be present time.  And on her website West has mentioned the "End of Days" story arc, which I hope means we get to find out more about Kiriel, the two Hunter-born children out west (Stephen's and Gilliam's kids), and more about Isladar.  I really enjoy the world West built for this series.

[Sky]

Give up now. I did and I'm a happier person for not having to slog through Erikson's shit anymore. He was a good writer in the beginning who has totally gone off the rails into his own archeological shit and theory the civilization is horribly doomed to dust and ruin. The first 80% of his last three books were total shit.

I disagree. I'm about ten pages shy of finishing Reapers Gale right now and it's his best work outside the Karsa mini-novel introduction. Sure, he gets gloomy and it's pretty obvious where he's pulling the political stuff from, but it lends a realism to the pressures that the Letherii are facing. Where he has really begun to shine is in the softer areas, like when Beak goes to meet his brother or Seren and Trull reunite in the gate chamber. I think that growth lends a fullness to his writing that had been lacking previously, Reapers Gale was a very well-written book.

Ironwood, did you know he dedicated it to Glen Cook?

 

[LK]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

Blowing my MIND. I feel like every page I read is raising my IQ. I've been continuing my study of psychology to better understand myself and others and this one book hits so many avenues in life. It even has insights into things like multiplayer gaming and raid mentality. 

[Rendakor]

I just finished "The Black Prism", first book in a new trilogy by Brent Weeks, author of the Night Angel series. Despite a magical society that feels like a WoT ripoff, the book was very good.

[Khaldun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

Blowing my MIND. I feel like every page I read is raising my IQ. I've been continuing my study of psychology to better understand myself and others and this one book hits so many avenues in life. It even has insights into things like multiplayer gaming and raid mentality. 

It's good but keep in mind that Pinker loads the deck, busily sets up and demolishes straw men, etcetera: he's a very persuasive writer but sometimes plays dirty or fudges.

[LK]

It's good but keep in mind that Pinker loads the deck, busily sets up and demolishes straw men, etcetera: he's a very persuasive writer but sometimes plays dirty or fudges.

The book is from 2002, do you know of anything written since that may reinforce or provide a compelling counter-argument? (Wikipedia has one I'll check out after I'm done.)

I've had too much personal experience that seems to reinforce passages from the book. But that may be true for other people. I still have half the book to go through.

Edit: As I read I do see the straw men popping up, but, as an example, I take the ones I've read as an indication not to have full faith in a feeling rather than "all feelings are false." Actually the book does advocate that all feelings are false in some sense...

[Ironwood]

Ironwood, did you know he dedicated it to Glen Cook?

 

Glen Cook ?  The name escapes me... Did he write anything I'd have heard of ?

[ghost]

I decided to read the free copy of Atlas Shrugged that I got through the Apple reader store.  I had never read it before and it reads much more smoothly than I anticipated.  So far I'm enjoying it.  Then I'm still listening to Xenocide on my way to and from work.  Enjoying that as well- much better than I expected.  After that I plan to start on the Black Company . 

[naum]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate

Blowing my MIND. I feel like every page I read is raising my IQ. I've been continuing my study of psychology to better understand myself and others and this one book hits so many avenues in life. It even has insights into things like multiplayer gaming and raid mentality. 

It's good but keep in mind that Pinker loads the deck, busily sets up and demolishes straw men, etcetera: he's a very persuasive writer but sometimes plays dirty or fudges.

/thanks, as I hesitated in stating something along the same vein, but it's been a few years since I read this. Yes, Pinker is a very smart dude, but I did get the impression that he sees things as it plugs into his narrative, a slant on how they truly are. And when Pinker delves into anthropology, he dives off the cliff…

[Abagadro]

I decided to read the free copy of Atlas Shrugged that I got through the Apple reader store.  I had never read it before and it reads much more smoothly than I anticipated. 

Just wait until John Galt starts speechifying.