Robert Jordan dies, Wheel of Time never ends

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:57 pm

Nah, I get you Keffria. There's a lot of crappy fantasy out there--I think I love the potential of the fantasy genre more than a lot of the actual results. I appreciate that Neil Gaiman hasn't padded his novels into multi-volume book shelf-fillers, but instead just lets the story be told.

To be honest, I think a lot of fantasy authors pad that way because the guy they were influenced by did it: Tolken.

Dr Legostar · Post by **Dr Legostar** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 5:00 am

Black Sparrow wrote:Yay for this thread! My sister and mother are trying to get me to read Terry Goodkind, but after hearing that Goodkind is WORSE than Jordan... I don't think I can bear to touch the books. Reading 11000 pages of Jordan has scarred me for life.

yeah, don't bother with goodkind, what you should do, if you haven't already is find the Jhereg series by Steven Brust, you'd love it.

Black Sparrow · Post by **Black Sparrow** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:13 am

legostargalactica wrote:
Black Sparrow wrote:Yay for this thread! My sister and mother are trying to get me to read Terry Goodkind, but after hearing that Goodkind is WORSE than Jordan... I don't think I can bear to touch the books. Reading 11000 pages of Jordan has scarred me for life.
yeah, don't bother with goodkind, what you should do, if you haven't already is find the Jhereg series by Steven Brust, you'd love it.

Already did and already do.

It's my favorite series next to the Assassin series by Robin Hobb. (yes, my tastes show a pattern, don't they?)

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:24 am

Keffria wrote:And... Seconding the comment on hoooge fantasy books being mostly padding. It's as if fantasy authors assume that no one will take them seriously if they don't write a multi-volume epic.

I think it's Tolkien's fault.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 12:19 pm

NakedElf wrote:
Keffria wrote:And... Seconding the comment on hoooge fantasy books being mostly padding. It's as if fantasy authors assume that no one will take them seriously if they don't write a multi-volume epic.
I think it's Tolkien's fault.

That's what I said!

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:27 pm

Oops, sorry.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:44 am

This should be a lesson for people who start epic webcomics.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 4:36 am

mcDuffies wrote:This should be a lesson for people who start epic webcomics.

Indeed.

Adobedragon · Post by **Adobedragon** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:42 am

Tellurider wrote:I mean really, the Wheel of Time story is interesting, but the chicks in those stories all need to be smacked. Hard

I quit reading Wheel of Time when I started thinking horrible, misogynistic thoughts like, "Yo! Someone needs to take that bitch out back and beat the shit out of her."

Goodkind's books, on the other hand, are a tiresome journey into torture and pointless violence, combined with a *terminally un-consumated romantic relationship (between the two main characters). (*At least as far as I read--book 4--before I gave up.)

I would second the above recommendation of Hobb's Assassin series. I'm also fond of the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Trilogy by Tad Williams. The first three books of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire were fantastic, although I think the fourth book was rather listless and book five...is nowhere in sight.

Kaloo · Post by **Kaloo** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:04 pm

Well, let's look at the positive. Endings are always horribly disappointing.

Pimpette · Post by **Pimpette** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:49 pm

Black Sparrow wrote:Already did and already do. It's my favorite series next to the Assassin series by Robin Hobb. (yes, my tastes show a pattern, don't they?)

<3
Though I like the Liveship Traders bit the best. Amber ftw (and Malta too, after she stops being a bitch).

Duralict · Post by **Duralict** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:50 pm

I used to read epic fantasy basically only because of the huge page counts (I was tired of spending $80 at the bookstore every two months), and I'll read pretty much anything with a half-decent plot or even a sense of forward momentum. But I gotta tell you, Terry Goodkind is the worst author I've ever read. Sure, the first book started out fine, but by the seventh? (Um, spoilers, but you really shouldn't care.) That book drags on for like eight hundred pages with this girl whinging on and on about the goat she left with a sausage vendor in some fantasy city, and he shows up at the end on the opposite side of the frickin planet WITH THE GOAT. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT. Because he thought she missed it. (Which she did, but come on! A sausage vendor! A goat! A hojillian miles everyone else cheated and teleported! Wtf.)

Have you ever noticed that once fantasy authors get to a certain point, their kinks start emerging? Like, unignorably? Goodkind is really into pain and nuns, Jordan likes polyamory and strong but brainless women, Terry Brooks likes bland Tolkien ripoffs with incredible emo pain...

NakedElf · Post by **NakedElf** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:52 am

At some point, after thousands of pages, I imagine authors start wanting to write something *they* at least enjoy, and know their editors'll let them get away with it, anyway.

Escushion · Post by **Escushion** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 11:11 am

It's called getting full of oneself.

Some of the best writers are also good at self-editing. They know what of their hundreds of thousands of ideas are valuable and which need to be left on crumpled notepaper in the wastebasket. But then, there are good writers who need someone standing next to them to smack them upside the head and say, "No! Bad best-selling author! You do not shit on the page!"

Dracomax · Post by **Dracomax** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 5:33 pm

duralict wrote:... Terry Brooks likes bland Tolkien ripoffs with incredible emo pain...

hey, brooks only really wrote one tolkien ripoff.
can't argue with the emo thing though.