This thread is far more civil than anticipated; good show!
I try not to hate series, with a few exceptions.
I appreciate, but do not enjoy, Tolkien - yes, he's a professor, and he writes like one, and that's where I sometimes find myself glazing over in the eyes instead of taking in the beauty and structure of what is written. I find it a hard concept to convey to people - many thing that disliking something means one has a complete lack of appreciation for it.
I've enjoyed a few Pern books, but I couldn't stay 'hooked' in the setting.
I enjoyed A Game of Thrones - however, I also enjoy highly political games, and Dynasties & Demagogues gets a lot of use in my games. I've not had the chance to get past book one, however.
Black Company intrigues me, but as others have said, the writing style gets in the way for me.
I actually enjoyed most of R.A. Salvatore's non-Drizz't books, and even a few stories involving the most imitated drow in the world. That said, I can see why a lot of people dislike his style, and the closest comparison that comes to mind is that he often comes across as a cook who moved up from McDonald's to Five Guys, trying to compete with his product with a five star steakhouse. What he does isn't all bad by any means, but it's hyped and promoted as though it were more than what it is.
Lovecraft. I love how he writes, even as I sometimes hate the content and the non-literary things he has done. I think it's safest to leave it at that.
The same applies, albeit slightly less stringently, to Robert E. Howards.
I never got into Brooks, and I've been promising myself I'd try.
On the flipside, I wish more people had heard of the Kedrigern series by John Morressy.
I do believe that a good amount of what seems to be a common complaint about authors in this thread comes down to information density, and good gods do some of the most acclaimed artists seem to enjoy the infodump, without considering the rate of data consumptions amongst their audience.
I suppose that part of that may be a matter of whether the books are written as an exercise for themselves and then as something for other readers, or if the creative process is more audience-centered than self-indulgent.
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A Dance with Dragons (DwD): A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five
Dancing in the Doldrums
I never liked the series, because GRRM played with your emotions from the first book, and he reveled in causing grief to good characters and rewarding evil.
I wasn't the biggest fan of ADwD, either, but
Also
Just flipping through I don't see Gene Wolfe mentioned here, but his work is made for this thread. "New Sun" is one of those polarizing books, sort of like "Finnegan's," that is either the best thing you have ever read or deadly dense, opaque, abstruse, and almost unreadable. I vacillate/oscillate.
I'm with you there brother. I made it through the first two New Sun books and just couldn't make it any further. They are just about the only fantasy series that has completely defeated me, and I've managed to read Gravity's Rainbow cover to cover and kinda sorta almost understood it ;-).
I appreciate, but do not enjoy, Tolkien - yes, he's a professor, and he writes like one, and that's where I sometimes find myself glazing over in the eyes instead of taking in the beauty and structure of what is written. I find it a hard concept to convey to people - many thing that disliking something means one has a complete lack of appreciation for it.
Exactly my overall attitude towards the prof. Tolkien's works.
Lovecraft. I love how he writes, even as I sometimes hate the content and the non-literary things he has done. I think it's safest to leave it at that.
On the other hand the way he writes is what unimpress me most. We have a few jokes references to his writing style amongst the friends.
On the flipside, I wish more people had heard of the Kedrigern series by John Morressy.
When I think of Kedrigern series I usually end thinking about how to build viable Abjurer.
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I gave up on Perdido Street Station after a few chapters. Sex with bug-girls just isn't my thing.It takes Perdido St. Station about 100 pages to really get going. Once you get into the groove, though, it's a remarkable book. I concede that a lot of people don't have the patience for those first 100 pages, though.
Oh, agreed. Each book in the Bas-Lag series starts out as a wall of incomprehensible text that eventually coalesces into an amazing narrative. But getting there can be a bit of a slog.
That said, I think The Scar is probably the best of the Bas-Lag series, balancing story with world-building beautifully.
If, however, you would like to experience Miéville without the stumbling blocks, I highly recommend The City & The City, because it reduces the implausibilities to a single conceit that is pretty much explained on the dust jacket. I very much enjoyed that novel.
My personal dislike is Lovecraft. Not only is the style obsolete--it doesn't really do a good job of conveying information, but the plots are formulaic to the point of being trite, too. But the real killer to me is the overarcing theme of desperately wanting to keep the unknown, unknown. As an explorer by nature, I find that attitude abhorrent.
If, however, you would like to experience Miéville without the stumbling blocks, I highly recommend The City & The City, because it reduces the implausibilities to a single conceit that is pretty much explained on the dust jacket. I very much enjoyed that novel.
My personal dislike is Lovecraft. Not only is the style obsolete--it doesn't really do a good job of conveying information, but the plots are formulaic to the point of being trite, too. But the real killer to me is the overarcing theme of desperately wanting to keep the unknown, unknown. As an explorer by nature, I find that attitude abhorrent.
I haven't yet started TC&TC, but I'll be starting it soon.
I think it's funny, though, that the only thing I've ever read by Mieville, other than his entry for Paizo, was an interview in the International Socialist Review in which he discusses his love and admiration for Lovecraft.
Myself, I haven't yet read HPL. Maybe after I finish REH.
The reason I decided to post was that someone mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay; I simply could not finish The Summer Tree. I'm not sure what distinguished it from all the terrible books I've slogged through, but it stands alone as a book I don't plan to finish. He even meets the threshold for critically acclaimed according to the awards section of his Wikipedia article.
THE SUMMER TREE isn't very good, nor is his whole first trilogy (and the only trilogy he's ever written), which he wrote under the influence of working on Tolkien (he co-edited some of the latter parts of THE SILMARILLION alongside Christopher Tolkien). His critical reputation rests on his stand-alones, particularly THE LIONS OF AL-RASSAN and the recent UNDER HEAVEN (TIGANA also gets a lot of respect in some quarters). His most 'literary' effort was THE SARANTINE MOSAIC, a duology riffing on the history of Byzantium, though I think both AL-RASSAN and UNDER HEAVEN are better.
Spoiler:Neither the murder of the Onion Knight nor the murder of the King Beyond the Wall had to occur to promote the plot in DwD.
Neither of those things happen in the novel.
Spoiler:hang out across the sea when given the opportunity (13 vessels) to go home and reclaim her birthright.
This is addressed in some detail in the book:
Spoiler:kills off K. Lannister. The character's appearance is not so much a dramatic plot twist as a "head scratcher." It completely destroys suspension of disbelief. Also, the character, who was previously portrayed as completely amoral if not actually evil, now "rides in on the white charger" as the savior of the Seven Kingdoms.
That's certainly one interpretation:
While I freely agree that Covenant is an ass, you ignore one of the main points of the whole series
Yup, Donaldson was not trying to replicate Tolkien and had zero interest in doing that. He was writing something different, designed to challenge and subvert expectations and ideas about what fantasy was. Given it was written in 1977, before even the epic fantasy genre as we know it existed, it was rather ahead of its time and its literary/artistic ambitions are generally laudable.
Unfortunately, it's difficult to read due to both its unrelenting darkness and also Donaldson's quite ridiculous love of using a thesaurus to substitute common words for obscure replacements. I'd agree this is a critically-acclaimed series that doesn't deserve its praise.
His SF series, THE GAP, is absolutely brilliant though.
I gave up on Perdido Street Station after a few chapters. Sex with bug-girls just isn't my thing.
In fairness, that's only a tiny part of the book. I enjoyed it, but after creating this stunningly original and vivid world Mieville then put a totally dull and predictable plot in it. I think THE SCAR is a superior book on every single level.
While I freely agree that Covenant is an ass,
I do, and I agree with you.
If you think Covenant is bad, don't read his sf series.
Good warning! I will heed your advice good Sir!
In service,
Rich
I wasn't the biggest fan of ADwD, either, but
** spoiler omitted **
Also
** spoiler omitted **
You're absolutely right. That was my meaning when I said, "(By the by, it is equally frustrating to watch a character die off only to find out that his double was killed. That is like reading a whole book and finding out that the entire story was just a dream.)"
In service,
Rich
As much as I like Lovecraft's themes and ideas. The way he writes stuff is just...ugh. Same goes for Tolkien too.
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I wasn't the biggest fan of ADwD, either, but
** spoiler omitted **
Also
** spoiler omitted **
You're absolutely right. That was my meaning when I said, "(By the by, it is equally frustrating to watch a character die off only to find out that his double was killed. That is like reading a whole book and finding out that the entire story was just a dream.)"
In service,
Rich
Ah, my mistake. I had thought that was what you meant at first, but you had also said something like
Anyway, the character in question hadn't been killed onscreen, so I never fully believed he was dead. Same with
R Scott Bakker's stuff. Some good ideas, but the books are just painful to read. Way too much philosophy pushed on the reader. Tried three times to read The Darkness That Comes Before, but gave up each time.
FWIW, I struggled a bit with TDTCB but pushed through it for some reason, and sometime through the second book I was hooked.
Steven Erikson. There's some good writing and ideas there, but really not worth wading through all the dry sawdust.
The thing that gets me about Erikson is this:
If you've ever gone to a major gaming con (say, GenCon or Origins) for the full duration, at some point, a gamer you haven't met before or at least don't know well will try to relate the events of their home campaign to you. It is clear to you that, to them, this campaign is the coolest thing ever, but, to you, it just kind of sounds cheesy and lame. These PCs died, but came back as gods for no good reason? And X, Y, Z ridiculous things? Okay, whatever.
That's Gardens of the Moon for me: a thin novelization of someone's RPG campaign that probably seemed cool as hell to the people in it but doesn't have the same charm for me.
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I think it's funny, though, that the only thing I've ever read by Mieville, other than his entry for Paizo, was an interview in the International Socialist Review in which he discusses his love and admiration for Lovecraft.Myself, I haven't yet read HPL. Maybe after I finish REH.
It is rather funny for me, because yes, there's clear Lovecraftian influence in Miéville's style. However, I believe the difference lies in that Miéville revels in the differences, while Lovecraft presents them as things not only to fear, but to avoid. Both are good at intimating at the bizarre, but Miéville delves further, while Lovecraft kind of ends it at "Tentacles... gas bags... oh, it is all too horrible to describe."
FWIW, I struggled a bit with TDTCB but pushed through it for some reason, and sometime through the second book I was hooked.R Scott Bakker's stuff. Some good ideas, but the books are just painful to read. Way too much philosophy pushed on the reader. Tried three times to read The Darkness That Comes Before, but gave up each time.
DARKNESS can be a tough book to get through. I managed it in one day as I was doing a job that required sitting at a post and not doing anything else, so I was able to plough through it in a single day without any distractions or having anything else to do.
THE WARRIOR-PROPHET is a much better book, and I'd argue that the most recently-released novel in the series, THE WHITE LUCK WARRIOR, is probably the strongest epic fantasy book released this year.
That's Gardens of the Moon for me: a thin novelization of someone's RPG campaign that probably seemed cool as hell to the people in it but doesn't have the same charm for me.
GARDENS OF THE MOON is a flawed novel. Amongst other things, it was written 10 years before the rest of the series when Erikson was a much less accomplished writer, and it was not written with an ongoing series in mind.
I always recommend that people try DEADHOUSE GATES, the second book in the series. It's set on a separate continent with an unrelated storyline with a (mostly) different cast, and requires no foreknowledge of the first book in the series. You can even start with it. It's more accessible, easier to read and shows Erikson's strengths in a much stronger way.
When I think of Kedrigern series I usually end thinking about how to build viable Abjurer.
THANK YOU.
I get that bug EVERY time I go back and reread Voice for Princess or Remembrance for Kedrigern. It also has impacted how I tend to portray Abjurers - slightly odd even to their fellow spellcasters, with some manner of specifically thematic eccentricity. Often in the forms of paranoia in the extreme, isolationism taken to similar extremes, or in the case of one character that was somewhat inspired by the aesthetics of the World of Warcraft dragons, one who took to wearing magical shields in dragon form as ear-fin-rings(?) that made for somewhat largish earrings when in a humanoid form. Also, she was disproportionately lanky in all forms, giving a oddly adorable awkward appearance to all her guises.
I thought the Book of the New Sun series was crap. I get that he was using archaic but actual words for most of his terms to make them exotic, but it was so obfuscatory that it got in the way of the story. Meanwhile, the things that were supposed to be shocks or surprises were obvious well in advance.
The reason I decided to post was that someone mentioned Guy Gavriel Kay; I simply could not finish The Summer Tree. I'm not sure what distinguished it from all the terrible books I've slogged through, but it stands alone as a book I don't plan to finish. He even meets the threshold for critically acclaimed according to the awards section of his Wikipedia article.THE SUMMER TREE isn't very good, nor is his whole first trilogy (and the only trilogy he's ever written), which he wrote under the influence of working on Tolkien (he co-edited some of the latter parts of THE SILMARILLION alongside Christopher Tolkien). His critical reputation rests on his stand-alones, particularly THE LIONS OF AL-RASSAN and the recent UNDER HEAVEN (TIGANA also gets a lot of respect in some quarters). His most 'literary' effort was THE SARANTINE MOSAIC, a duology riffing on the history of Byzantium, though I think both AL-RASSAN and UNDER HEAVEN are better.
I quite enjoyed the Fionavar Tapestry myself. I do very much agree that its the kind of book that should be on this sort of list. Its possible that its just my neck of the woods but the series just seems more main stream then just about everything else in fantasy. By which I mean that I know a bunch of people that otherwise don't read fantasy fiction that have read and enjoyed this series.
No surprise to me that this is the case either as has been pointed out above he was pretty heavily influenced by Tolkien. The Fionavar Tapestry is something like a version of Tolkien that also happens to be readable.
All that said, while I enjoyed The Summer Tree this series did not really become anything special for me until The Darkest Road. Its been many, many, years but I recall really enjoying that book and thinking it was a great way to wrap up a fantasy series.
We can't let this thread die, people!
So, I finally thought of one, but unfortunately it's sci-fi, not fantasy, but I don't care:
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.
No sir, didn't like it.
Ooh! Good call!
I think people liked him because he was the Darth Vader of Krynn.
Also, Raistlin sucks!
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Ooh! Good call!
I think people liked him because he was the Darth Vader of Krynn.
Also, Raistlin sucks!
Darth Vader of Krynn? Ha!
He's the kid brother of the neighbor friend of Darth Vader who think's he's just soooo cool. So this kid finds a bucket, paints it black, puts it on, and then says "Hey, can I play with you too?" When they finally bother to stick this kid in the garbage can, he gets out, cries, grabs his sister's doll, runs over to Dracula, and says, "I got a tragic romance, too, can I play?" And Dracula sticks the doll in the toilet and gives this kid a swirlie, and the kid cries some more and locks himself in the closet to play toy soldiers with himself.
That's Soth.
Man, you're making me feel sorry for poor Sothie.
But maybe that's just because nobody ever wanted to play with me, either.
I'm going to go call my therapist now...
Stephen King's later Dark Tower books.
Mumbled quasi-prophecies, lethargic whiny characters, unimaginatively bland protagonist. Several cop-out moments, with the finale simply trouncing last ounces of the respect for the series (though, admittedly, at this point I was simply reading the book in book shop, considering it pointless to shell my earnings for such a waste of paper).
Wow. I thought
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Wow. I thought ** spoiler omitted **Stephen King's later Dark Tower books.
Mumbled quasi-prophecies, lethargic whiny characters, unimaginatively bland protagonist. Several cop-out moments, with the finale simply trouncing last ounces of the respect for the series (though, admittedly, at this point I was simply reading the book in book shop, considering it pointless to shell my earnings for such a waste of paper).Agreed. It seemed like he'd gotten about halfway through an interesting science-fantasy kind of story (with horror elements, admittedly) and then didn't know what to do with it so he just went back to his standard horror tropes.
** spoiler omitted **
Both of The Jeff's spoiler points are ones I very strongly agree with. The only worse example I can think of is
Still, I re-read the series recently and loved it -- my secret was
Didn't care for Dark Tower after Drawing of the Three. Lots of whining.
Ooh! Good call!
I think people liked him because he was the Darth Vader of Krynn.
Also, Raistlin sucks!
You will pay for that last part, Burgo-troll.
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Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. Thought it sucked.
EDIT: The Omega Man is the shiznit, though.
I never, ever, ever liked any of the Dragonlance books. Nor Jordan's "Wheel of Time" novels. I don't know how critically acclaimed they are(were), but they bored me to death. In fact, they're the reason I'm a lich today.
I don't like Robert Jordan's Books. As for Salvatore his descriptive fight scenes are what I think keep him alive. Artemis could have been a much better character than what he is.
I always felt I heard the dice tumbling during the fight scenes. Some of it is quite incomprehensible, too. Things like standing back to back with someone while fighting a ton of enemies... And you spin to switch places with the other guy, and back again... For some sort of tactical advantage... Ummm, yeah. Or spinning fully around in melee, thereby showing your enemy your BACK. That has to be really tactical and stuff.
Salvatore simply has no clue about fighting, not even the very basics. It... can be annoying.
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I never, ever, ever liked any of the Dragonlance books.
I have re-read some of the early TSR novels over the past couple of years. The only ones I found that I thought were better than passable were Weasel's Luck and Galen Benighted by Michael Williams. Any one else feel the love?
Although, even those I re-read a couple of years ago (I can't actually remember what happened in the second one) and nostalgia may be influencing my opinion.
Some of the early Ravenloft books are quite readable. Christie Golden's Vampire of the Mists was actually good enough that I gave it to my mother and said, "Here, try this," and she liked it!
One of my favorite books.
I always felt I heard the dice tumbling during the fight scenes. Some of it is quite incomprehensible, too. Things like standing back to back with someone while fighting a ton of enemies... And you spin to switch places with the other guy, and back again... For some sort of tactical advantage... Ummm, yeah. Or spinning fully around in melee, thereby showing your enemy your BACK. That has to be really tactical and stuff.
Salvatore simply has no clue about fighting, not even the very basics. It... can be annoying.
LOL. I know which book scene that is, but when I read a book it plays in my mind like a movie, and I have seen it in movies so I guess that is why it works.
Some of the early Ravenloft books are quite readable. Christie Golden's Vampire of the Mists was actually good enough that I gave it to my mother and said, "Here, try this," and she liked it!
I was going to say "Not early enough!," but checking on wikipedia, this must've been published in the last year I was reading TSR novels.
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So, I have a new a supervisor. He's worse than my old one. Anyway, he saw that I had a book with me and asked what it was. I showed it to him. He asked what it was about. "Dragons and wizards and shiznit," I answered. "Oh yeah," he said, "I used to read Terry Brooks." "Terry Brooks sucks," I replied, and then walked away.
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I couldn't get into the Wheel of Time books, got through the first and halfway into the second and gave up!
I quiet liked the first three shannara books (some of the earliest fantasy I read) but got bored of them there after.
I found the Pern series hit and miss for my taste too.
First time I attempted Tolkin I got no where fast and gave up fast. but when the films were first coming out I get LOTR ago again...funnily enough having just studied Russian lit and living in Russia as I was at the time it was a lot easier to read :D
It's so funny, reading through this thread; 'uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh... WHAT?! How can somebody not love THAT?! Uh-huh... uh-huh...'
Srsly, I had to laugh at myself.
While I did enjoy Shanarra through the third book (Wishsong) I really wish he'd stopped there; the rest are just awful.
Ditto lots of folks re: Anita Blake. Great story/nifty characters/fascinating world all flushed down the bad porn toilet around book 5 or so.
And I would roast marshmallows over the fire that Margaret Wiess & Tracy Hickman died in. Drangonlance, et. al., were bad enough, but the sheer cheek of straight authors writing a story that has a gay character HAPPY to be a useless third wheel to a straight couple? [Rose of the Prophet series, which stank on its own merit, but that situation was last straw...]
And, finally:
It was seriously painful seeing him piss on his dad's amazing work.
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I think R E Howard wrote better Lovecraft than Lovecraft.....
Blasphemy good sir! Lol but in all seriousness I will say that Howard does it best next to lovecraft and knew how to make it work in a medieval/fantasy setting and could really write a fight scene like no one else, it still makes me sad that near a century later I have yet to see someone be able to write a fight scene that is as visceral, desperate, and plot sensible as he does. As for books for which I find distaste I haven't really found myself much a fan of Drizzt's tale from what I have read of it. The problem I have though I think stems more from what it means when I have a new player come to my table and wants to run a drow that is good but I know can't follow up with the cultural requirements of the race they are yanking from. This is the same culture that was set to sacrifice Driz immediately after his birth because it would grant them favor and I don't know a lot of drow reader newbies that can wrap their heads around a character that comes from that like I would want them to. On a related note I fervently despise anything that comes out trying to seriously bill itself as a scholarly copy of the Necronomicon, Lovecraft was a man who knew that the greatest terrors anyone can imagine are just that and to fill in all the gaps would break the fear it brought to the mind. On top of that many of them are quite often just using the name to drum up attention for what is more or less ill thought out reskins of angel and demon mythology from various judeo christian religions. To this day I still fume at the idea of Cthulhu being written as a demon god with the power over water.
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Kirth Gersen, it turns out, hates everything.