It’s a good thing no one reads your posts for their prose value either.
(pwnd!)
You, sir, might have a future in the fantasy book industry.
Edited for conflation of posts.
LK- I “misused” genocide. It was hyperbole. Hy-per-bo-le.
The Legend of Huma. You’re not dreaming. That one was actually pretty good.
I liked the first 3 dragonlance books. I never read any further, so I can not comment on how it all turned out. The world was intresting enough, the characters were a little meh. I was not happy with Strom Brightblade’s death. He was more intresting then Rastlin to me.
I have a soft spot for Salvatore. As a youngster, I’d started with Dragonlance, so Salvatore’s DE and Icewind Dale trilogies were revelatory. The idea that this might be in dispute is a little disturbing.
So, I’d “grown” out of the genre by college. When I returned to Salvatore a couple of years back to catch up, I enjoyed the first book or two – these were the ones where the barbarian fellow lets himself go, and we got a lot of focus on the assassin fellow and his rivalry with the elf fellow.
Then I hit the new Thousand Orcs books, and it was like an epiphany. Somehow I had given the benefit of the doubt to it all, but in that particular episode, the abject hackery of it all stopped me in my tracks. In retrospect, the shark-jumping moment was waaay back, when they had Drizzt go back to Menzobarazzleshazzle. A couple of books of articulate, charactery pulp can be fun. But good god, he must be on book 30 now, or something.
The second Dragonlance Trilogy (Legends) is vastly, VASTLY superior to the first. By this stage Weiss & Hickman have learned how to write. The characters have depth, strengths and weaknesses, and are altogether interesting. The story is excellent as well.
Also highly recommended - The Legacy. A short story by W&H found in Tales Volume 1. Sort of a conclusion to the Legends trilogy. It’s probably their best work. This still gives me goose bumps -
“A gift… from the true master of the tower.”
The recent comic book adaptation of the Dragonlance books was a little underwhelming to say the least.
I read them recently again as well, along with the fond memories I had when I read them at 13. The writing doesn’t hold up at all, but the basic story is pretty fun, if you can look past how it was written.
Damn, you are right. I mispelled a word by using a homonym. If only I could spell faze correctly, I could be a great author like you ;). I think there is some sort of rule though that says whenever you are discussing fantasy or sci-fi, you have to use words like ‘phase’. If you can’t get them in naturally, it’s acceptable to use them as mispellings of the word you intended to use.
And besides…I…ermm…I meant phase…I meant to take me into another dimension. It was your poor reading that caused the problem, not my writing!
Ditto- RA’s stuff is exactly that. I enjoy them, but they are nothing but TV series in book form.
And no, I’ve never had a Drow dual wield character. Tho all my rangers are dual wield, why not- shields are for wussies.
Summer Flame was pretty good, if only for the ultra-final closure they gave the ending. If it wasn’t for Jean Rabe coming along and fucking it all up, the series could have enjoyed a graceful end there. Alas, a whole shitload of craptastic books followed that were written about as well as the sense they made. It was also a terrible, terrible move for Weis and Hickman to try to save the series by continuing Rabe’s storyline… I read one W&H book after the horrific Rabe series and wanted to vomit. It was absolutely terrible.
I don’t know what you are talking about Scry, because I didn’t read anything after Summer Flame. But the part the bothered me about Flame was (SPOILER) when they decided to kill of magic and destroy the fantasy…I HATE when writers do that; give you a world and then destroy it in the end by making it turn lame; Tolkien did it too, and I guess they were invoking him. But it annoyed me in Tolkien as well…at least he did it with some class, calling on the ancient myth of a golden age and then decline. W&H just fucked the world up. (**********END SPOILER *******)
:)
Actually, I think the rule is that when critiquing someone/something’s grammar/style/spelling one will always make a similar or worse mistake. It’s almost automatic at this point.
Hey, I’ve got a good question: Which Eddings series is better, the Belgariad or the Mallorean?
I’ll check my trash can and get back to you…
And the worst part is, I went past both of those and read his Polegra the Sorceress, and Belgarath The Sorcerer and the other add on books that he wrote more recently with his wife. I’m a sucker for punishment.
His books are much like the Dragonlance books. Really great when you are 13-14 but they don’t hold up as well when you reach your 20’s and try and read them again after reading something like GRRM or Erikson. It just isn’t the same. You might still enjoy the story, but…
The Belgariad is the shinier brown turd.
OK, then maybe I should ask which Xanth book is the best?
LOL you’re funny.
Seriously, Xanth is like the worst thing ever. Piers Anthony in general, really.
If you want some crap fantasy novels that you can read in a few days and then throw away, I just read several of the David Gemmell books (series starts with Legend), and enjoyed them quite a bit. As long as you’re going on the assumption that you’re looking for crap fantasy novels and none of it is going to be great literature or anything. Maybe “pulp” would be a better word. Discworld is quality too, but kind of a different thing as they’re more a satire of fantasy novels.
Oh no, that’s nothing. His Tamuli series makes both of those look downright Shakespearean in quality. It starts on the right foot by grinding out his usual drivel and then amplifying the creepiness with which sex was dealt with all the way up to 11, namely by having a main character who raised the other main character go all Woody Allen on her AT HER PROMPTING. It’s like Lewis Carroll without the talent, except I don’t remember Alice begging for old man balls that often. (which, to be fair, neither does Eddings’ nymphet, but she sure does say everything but that)
I’d say Chronicles and Legends hold up much better than any of his trash. It’s Shannaraesque in its devotion to making the completely unoriginal somehow more banal. By the way, fuck Terry Brooks as well, before any of you brings him up.
After LotR, it was all down hill, for me. Read it when I was 11 or 12. The only thing that’s redeemed the genre in my eyes is Sword of Ice and Fire, and it is (I think without coincidence) much more understated with the elves, wizards, and two-dimensional arch-nemeses. I’ve been through Terry Brooks, Salvatore, David Eddings, Robert Jordan, some Prachett, McCaffrey, some Wolfe, and a congealed layer of forgettable hackery that clings depressingly to Tolkein’s legacy. Sure, the man might not have crafted particularly interesting characters, but he had mad poet skillz and the most evocative naming conventions I’ve ever read.
And Neil Gaiman’s critical popularity continues to confound me. Interesting settings but terrible plotting, and arc resolutions that vary between cartoonishly pulpy (Neverwhere) and insultingly anti-climactic (American Gods). I mean, I was periodically reminded by the narrative that some nebulous “storm” was coming, and that “storm” came and went within the space of a couple paragraphs. It was almost as bad as the ending of Tad Williams’ MS+T trilogy; perhaps the thin guise of his not-elves should have clued me in.