Favorite Books and Current Reads

[SirthOsiris]

Looks like I did see an impression.

Well, if someone that hates fantasy works tells me it's a great series regardless, then I guess it's a great series that'd be worth my time.
If this one can top A Wizard of Earthsea, then I probably found my new favorite book.

Hopefully when I write my own fantasy works, I avoid the 'bros doing wacky, zany fantasy things from atop a dragon with elvish concubines.' I wouldn't like those, either.

[scy]

To be fair, that's my distorted view of the high fantasy genre. I'm slowly getting into other fantasy novels to get away from that.

...hopefully.

Best way I can put A Game of Thrones (and the following books) is it's less about A CHARACTER and more about the characters in the world with the strife going on. That's far more interesting to me than following the travels of THIS ONE DUDE and his ragatag group of dudes as they do things.

Edit: Also, I have no idea what A Wizard of Earthsea is but I am looking for something "short" to get into so I may pick that up to make this a gleeful tit-for-tat recommendation thing.

Or something like that. It'll be a nice small stepping stone before the herculean Wheel of Time that was probably next on my chopping block.

[SirthOsiris]

It still focuses on one character, but I think it tries to develop that character pretty extensively. No ragtag group of adventurers.

And it looks like my series would be hit or miss for you.

[negzee]

reedinz fo suckas yo

[spoiler]I have a similar general regard for high fantasy (not having read much in the genre)... but A Game of Thrones sounds like something I could get into. I recall watching friends playing a session of the board game once, but I've never read the books.[/spoiler]

[scy]

I suppose what it boils down to is I dislike the grand, epic stories of ... the single most important motherfucker in the author's world. Events transpire around them and they're the sole crux of any and all plot development. It feels like the author had an idea for a character and then gave it a world to inhabit; the world becomes a backdrop to their story rather than something that exists.

Yes, we're reading a story about their adventures. I get that. And, really, I don't mind so much that we're following the single most important motherfucker (and the friends of the single most important motherfucker) but it has to be some well-crafted prose and with interesting, and compelling, events for it to really drag me in. I prefer a grand scheme of things for an epic tale [s]of souls and swords[/s] rather than the film crew that got sidetracked from Jersey Shore.

Plus, single most important motherfucker characters always come off as some strange Mary/Marty Sue character to me and it makes me headdesk/wall/spikes.

[negzee]

[noodles]

[Kinokokao]

SCY DO NOT READ THE WHEEL OF TIME

FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK DONT DO IT

you will hate it. you will hate it so much. It's an awful series. Just awful. Maybe if you love Mary Sues and jaded one-dimensional characters who all end up acting and talking the exact same and long winding descriptions of shit we'll never see and never care about; oh, great, a room? Please describe it for me in vivid detail since we're going to be in this room for all of one scene and oh WHATS THAT YOU FUCKING DIED BEFORE YOU COULD FINISH THE SERIES BECAUSE YOU CANT STOP WRITING BULLSHIT DESCRIPTION AND FOCUS ON THE REAL SHIT?

oh and Robert Jordan clearly hates women and I've never read a more misogynistic fantasy world. Oh and the whole bullshit cliche where every woman falls in love with the Gary Stu main character except in this version [hide]it's a prophecy that Gary Stu gets to be with 3 women at the same time and they just have to be cool with that[/hide] and inb4 "it's the Taint that makes all the women bitches" -- no. It's bad writing. Even people who like the Wheel of Time series have to admit that Jordan's women are seriously fucked up in the "makes me want to throw the book against the wall and murder everyone" way.

Haven't read it myself, but I've been hearing good things about Patrick Rothfuss. His "Name of the Wind" is out in paperback and the second book, The Wise Man's Fear, was just released in hardcover. He came to our store to do a signing for the first book. The second book we got 12 signed editions sent to us by Penguin and we sold them all within the first week; I even shipped one to Sweden.

Otherwise a pretty damn good classic fantasy is the Last Unicorn by Peter S Beagle.

Heard good things about the Earthsea books; I want to read them some day.

Otherwise I agree that most fantasy is billshit Mary Sue/Gary Stu nonsense of "street urchin or simple country child becomes super power/prophecy child/god-like powers and stops the Big Bad Evil"

And no one should read past the 4th Sword of Truth book. It just isn't worth it.

[Darilon]

I enjoyed the wheel of time for the most part although I totally despise Rand as a character. In the beginning I just put it down to my irrational dislike of main characters but it got worse as the series progressed.

I will probably agree with Kino on the Misogyny although he is not as bad as some other authors. Although, it is worth mentioning [hide] the guys run around doing what they feel they need to do while the women drink tea...for more chapters than I care to remember.[/hide]They may be pretty cliche but I did enjoy Mat and Perrin a lot more as Characters.

[scy]

[Sampson]

[Kinokokao]

I've flipped through the Brain Sanderson-as-Robert Jordan books here at work, and they do seem a bit better on the "stab yourself in the face with an icepick to end the awful writing" end.

Just a bit.

@Darilon

I liked Mat and Perrin, and then Perrin became the same, and then Mat also became the same as everyone else, and lost any interest I had in them. Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed getting started on the series, but as it progressed I just could not handle it anymore. I think I read up to book 10, and I have no interest in finishing the series. I at least stuck it through and finished Goodkind's atrocity.

I want the collective 100+ hours I probably spent on the Wheel of Time series back.

[Apolloncrash]

When I was in high school, I read the Wheel of time books, up to Lord of Chaos. I don't really remember much about them, except that I really liked them (though this should be taken with a grain of salt, as I was a fantasty novel fanatic back then and spent as much time, if not more, reading Dragonlance books as I did gaming). I would still like to read the series from start to finish, but I don't have that much time to waste right now.

That, and what little time I'm assigning to reading lately is still going to Animorphs, and even that has slowed right down. The next book I'm going to read is #18 The Decision and I'm looking forward to it, Ax books are always awesome, second only to the Tobias books IMO.

[zamisk]

I really enjoy most fantasy books, but Dragonlance never did it for me. I've only read one or two, though, and they weren't bad in any way, just not as spectacular as they were made out to be. In my opinion, that is.

[Apolloncrash]

The quality of the Dragonlance books is kind of all over the place. Some, like the Chronicles or Legends trilogys, are excellent whilst quite a few others (can't actually think of any off the top of my head) are pretty so-so. The Meetings Sextet is really good too, but only if you've read both Chronicles and Legends.

I'm not really impartial here though, because I've always been very fond of the Krynn and characters of this part of the timeline.

There was only ever one Dragonlance book I actively disliked, and that was the Meeting Sextet that focused on Sturm (the name eludes me ATM). The reason I disliked it however, was that it was way too political and talky, which my young mind found boring. I think I would probably quite enjoy it now.