How do you like your Fantasy?

[ScottRadom]

No way Matt, the scouring of the shire sucks. It\'s a scooby doo ending if ever there was one.

\"let\'s find out who\'s behind all this evil in poor old hobbiton\" -rips off the mask-

\"SARUMAM!\"

\"And I would\'ve gotten away with it too if it wasn\'t for you hobbits!\"

His setting and most of his characters are the reason we even talk about him today. His writing and pacing is awful. The scouring of the shire and everything that takes place after the bad guy loses is just so.... lame I guess.

He was out to create a marvelous mythology and he did that. In spades. I will never take anything away from Middle Earth, and I loves me my dwarfs as a direct result of his writing (man did Gimli get played for the fool in the movies!) but having read and re-read the books post Peter Jackson I just do anything but admire his writing style.

One series I initially really liked that I\'m suprised hasn\'t been mentioned is the Terry Goodkind sword of truth series. I loved the first book, and about 3/4 of the second. Then it turns to horrible crap for the next 8 or 50 books (I couldn\'t tell you the total).

Man, Goodkind took 9/11 REAL hard. His books go from the typical good vs. awful evil stuff -but paced in more an action style, with heavy emphasis on action and more action type action- then all of a sudden a dude pops his head up from a land that\'s all but described as Iraq and Goodkind is using his books to outlay exit strategies from Iraq. Bizarre and awful! A tip off for me to quit reading should have been when the bad guy takes form in, not kidding here at all, a \"Chicken that is not a Chicken.\". WOW! GRIPPING!

 

[hestan101]

tell ya whats the worst fantasy. those bloody awful Redwall books. so boring. theres like 90 and every single 1 has the same structure
theres a tyrant on an island
he has slaves
one slaves father was killed by the tyrant
said slave escapes
the slave goes to Redwall
Redwall attack and kill the tyrant
everybody eats

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by steelcult

Harry has a problem with his muggle family.
Harry goes to Hogwarts where there is a problem
Harry solves the problem at Hogwarts
Harry goes home to more problems with muggle family.

lol so true. but, they are for kids so more fool the adults who read them!

i will also read pratchett but other than that and comic fantasy compilations, i dont really \'do\' fantasy

 

[arogers907]

i will also read pratchett but other than that and comic fantasy compilations, i dont really \'do\' fantasy

You should try Gemmel, though. His stuff is really an impressive representation of the genre. Shame he\'s passed on. =(

 

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
I don\'t. It\'s almost always hackneyed drivel.

To pick up on that point...

The day I realised that fiction was so much more imaginative than fantasy was the day I pretty much stopped reading fantasy altogether. It\'s a very limited genre is fantasy, but a comfortable one to immerse yourself in. Getting out of it can be a big step when you\'ve grown up with it, but the moment you do...well, it\'s like the Damascus Road conversion! I can count on one hand the fantasy series I like (after all these years) and I only recently read a couple of books by Michelle Paver and Pullman to see what my lady\'s son was reading. Quite enjoyed them, but as they were for kids they didn\'t take themselves hugely seriously. Good stories cross age-gaps very easily.

I will always emember Tolkien though - he got me reading in a VERY big way as a kid (and I was already a big (though little) reader anyway back then).

 

[Dragonsreach]

Okay going to Harp on about the Tolkien Bashing here for a minute.
It\'s been pointed out that he was Primarily a Linguist but lets not also forget that he was following the traditional (note the small T) late Victorian/Edwardian methodology of story telling as used by Spencer in \"The Farie Queen\" and others who were the Real foundation stones in Fantasy writing.
Plus while The Hobbit was written as a Childrens story between the wars LOTR was started before \'39 and was completed after \'45. And in an interview (one of the very rare ones he did) J.R.R. admitted that he very deliberatley added \"The Scourging Of the Shire\" Holding up a Fantasy mirror to reflect the damage done to the UK found by retruning soldiers.
Which is also why he made Frodo unable to settle in the rebuilt Shire echoing the unsettling confusion He and other soldiers found themselves in after World War 1. (What we would now refer to as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

As for current Fantasy well I have to admit that I\'ve read lots of it and yes the vast majority of it is formulaic.
And yes I\'ve read the vast majority of the Forgotton Realms series (got me through some really dire Nightshifts) so I can honestly say that the last ones I read (Elaine Cunningham: Daughter of the Drow series) were poor. It read as if she\'d gone through the Water Based Section of the AD&D Monster Manual and thrown every single thing she could out of it onto the page.
Conan books, sorry if I offend their fans but I find them flat and un-entertaining.
G.R.R.Martin don\'t like his writing style.
The Warhammer Fantasy series have all (to me at least) have all been so heavily \"Product Branded\" that the stories read as re-hashes of battles and roleplaying campaigns. (with the exception of the \"Angelica Fleischer\" series which were well written and could have been set in any Fantasy sphere.)

If you want a rollicking good read I can seriously reccommend \"The Lies of Locke Lamora\", and it\'s sequel \"Red Sails and Red Skies\".
Lies, Lockpicks and Larceny set an a very well imagined world setting. Strong Language throughout, but to me a very entertaining read.

 

[Legacy Account]

That\'s the whole problem with fantasy as a genre. It\'s always going to be lost in the shadow of Tolkien.

The word fantasy could mean anything, but all you get is people in cloaks, pointy ears and tragic dialogue...

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
That\'s the whole problem with fantasy as a genre. It\'s always going to be lost in the shadow of Tolkien.

The word fantasy could mean anything, but all you get is people in cloaks, pointy ears and tragic dialogue...

Then try the Lamora Book, Cloaks Yes, Pointy ears and tragic Dialogue, No.
Backstabbing, tricery and deceit, Yes in bucketfuls (of blood) along with a good few hearty, and dirty, laughs.

 

[Yuggoth]

I must strongly disagree with Mr. Random. I love Tolkiens pace and even all the little songs and poems. But I think its a matter of taste. If never been of the \"cut to the chase\" faction, i like my fantasy slow and detailed. To everyone who is with me in this I would strongly recomend Jaqueline Carey`s \"Kushiel\" Series (\"Kushiels Dart\" being the first). Lush, detailed, sexy and highly emotional.
What I like least is that salvatore srtuff about Drizzt. Fight scenes over and over again. If I want to learn fancing I go to a sportsclub...

 

[McKenna35]

Read through t he Tolkien trilogy + Hobbit once, and have never made it through the second book on any attempt to re-read it since.

Really like David Gemmel\'s stuff. I remember when I read \'Legend\' and they announced they were making a movie with the same name. I was like \'how are the going to film THAT!!!\' SO looking forward to it! Then I found out it wasn\'t based on the book by the same name.

Elizabeth Moon\'s \'Deed of Paksannarion\' trilogy is certainly one of my favorite series of all time.

Recently read through Jim Butcher\'s \"Dresden Files\" series, and it\'s one of the few that I\'ve read that got better as it went along.

Moviewise? Conan (the first one), LoTR Trilogy, and just for the sheer hokey fun of it \"Sword and the Sorceress\" and \"Hawk the Slayer\"

Michael

 

[Amazon warrior]

Fantasy I\'ve enjoyed and that no-one else has mentioned yet: The first four Deverry books by Katherine Kerr; The Scar and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville; The Clan of the Cavebear* by Jean M. Auel; Nightwatch and its sucessors by Sergei Lukyanenko; The Falco series by Lindsey Davis (the first are the best, imo); most things written by Neil Gaiman; \"The Dark is Rising\" sequence by Susan Cooper - I can\'t tell you how pissed off I was at the so-called film they made of one of these books. BLEH! :|~:|~:|~


*Seriously, just read this one. It\'s very, very good, especially the portrayal of the Neanderthals, but in subsequent books the main character, Ayla, is a lot too amazing and the introduction of two new \"awesome\" characters, Jondalar and Jondalar\'s enormous penis, don\'t help. Neither does the fact that the author often forgets that she\'s writing fiction and goes off on preachy little sermons on the human condition or long-winded lectures about prehistoric ecology. :yawn:

 

[kxtrey]

Robert Jordan\'s Wheel of time series is exceptional. I agree with most of his critics that he over uses his discriptions of characters! However it is still my favorite series. I\'ve never read a more in depth series of novels.

Unfortunately he passed away this last year and left this work incomplete. He has dictated most of the final novel, and a close friend will be finishing the series, but I have a hard time imagining it will be the same.

Jordan had also written some Conan stuff that I really enjoyed.


Tolkien....

Because it has not been mentioned I feel that I must say: from a literature standpoint \"The Scouring of the Shire\" is integral to the storyline because it shows the true scope of the character development...

my 2 cents..

 

[boristfrog]

I\'ve read a couple of Gaiman and enjoyed them but also found them a little soft where I wanted them to be hard.

Wheel of time I was enjoying about from the confusion of names added to each book- but the Malazans just make it look like kids play.

I read Nightwatch after seeing the film, and thought it was better than the film -but the second book was sooo depressing and the Daywatch film was even bunker I haven\'t bothered with the third.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Yeah, the Nightwatch film loses so much in translation it\'s untrue. My bf watched the film and was really reluctant to try the book, but I encouraged him and he enjoyed it once he started. I don\'t want to see the Daywatch film if it\'s anything like as bad as the Nightwatch one. I got Twilightwatch for Christmas but haven\'t read it yet.

 

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
The Clan of the Cavebear* by Jean M. Auel; Nightwatch and its sucessors by Sergei Lukyanenko

*Seriously, just read this one. It\'s very, very good, especially the portrayal of the Neanderthals, but in subsequent books the main character, Ayla, is a lot too amazing and the introduction of two new \"awesome\" characters, Jondalar and Jondalar\'s enormous penis, don\'t help. Neither does the fact that the author often forgets that she\'s writing fiction and goes off on preachy little sermons on the human condition or long-winded lectures about prehistoric ecology. :yawn:

Try reading William Golding\'s The Inheritors if you like the Neanderthal tack. A very good read, trying to operate from the mind of Neanderthals. I think he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He\'s that good. We all know Lord of the Flies, so try some more of his work

 

[Amazon warrior]

Thanks for the tip, Reverand! My father was a big fan of Golding, but most people only know Lord of the Flies because they had to do it at school. I shall give it a go.

 

[Infidel Castro]

It\'s difficult to get to grips with initially, but once you switch your mindset it goes great guns. Fact!

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
but in subsequent books the main character, Ayla, is a lot too amazing and the introduction of two new \"awesome\" characters, Jondalar and Jondalar\'s enormous penis, don\'t help.

LOL. It sounds like she forgot she was a \"real writer\" and started writing bad fanfic. Then again, many series start off well but the author shows their true chops because they simply can\'t keep up the quality after their initial burst of ideas is finished.

As for \"Night Watch\", I liked the movie, but then again I have never read the book. Then again maybe I just appreciated a different setting for urban horror than \"the alleys and sewers of A Major American City\"

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by No Such Agency

Originally posted by Amazon warrior
but in subsequent books the main character, Ayla, is a lot too amazing and the introduction of two new \"awesome\" characters, Jondalar and Jondalar\'s enormous penis, don\'t help.

LOL. It sounds like she forgot she was a \"real writer\" and started writing bad fanfic. Then again, many series start off well but the author shows their true chops because they simply can\'t keep up the quality after their initial burst of ideas is finished.

That\'s EXACTLY what it was like! Thanks for clarifying my babble! After the great bit with the Neanderthals, I cannot describe how depressing it was to find that all the Cro Magnon people acted like modern-day humans in skins.

Originally posted by No Such AgencyAs for \"Night Watch\", I liked the movie, but then again I have never read the book. Then again maybe I just appreciated a different setting for urban horror than \"the alleys and sewers of A Major American City\"

My problem with the film is that I watched it and said \"Damn! I just watched something really, really cool!!! What the hell was it about?\" So it doesn\'t get my \'worst film ever\' vote, but I like to have at least a bit of a handle on what happened by the end of a film and I didn\'t get that, thus it was frustrating.

Do read the book if you get a chance, I promise that you will spend a lot of time saying, \"Oh riiiight! I understand now!\"