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[Fantasy Thread] Where E = N^(1/B)
Lord Of The Pants
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Yes yes yes yes. Those books. You know the ones, the ones that you buy and hide under a copy of The Da Vinci Code so you won't get beaten up on the bus home.
Introduction
I stumbled across (in a dusty box in my parent's attic) a bunch of old fantasy books I read when I was a kid. Alas, Dragonlance was not among them, but there were some smattering of Star Wars (Shudder), Feist, David Eddings and some bits and pieces like that Stephen King fantasy novel which I quite enjoyed, Eyes Of The Dragon. So I got thinking: Surely not all fantasy novels were as bad as I remember them?
Surely the writing wasn't so overwritten? There has to be some good books out there!
But first what is fantasy novel?
So why does this warrant its own thread?
Well because these aren't normal books, and require a special thread. We're special people.
They illicit a certain special joy, in which we can overlook certain deficiencies if the plot is epic enough, or you have a bad ass mother fucking black wizard like Rastilin. Or a Wizzard.
What do we want to discuss?
Inherently, we wish to work out what is good and what is bad. So people may read them.
Note: What makes a bad novel is not that it is "Really slow for the first half" like Dune, or that the "Hero is gay." But more serious things like: "The character is the best at everything he does and is totally one dimensional." (Like Talon) or that he is "So testosterone filled, he's nearly a walking Dark Elf Hardon." (Drizzt, apparently.)
Straight away we have some topics to work for our initial discussion:
Go forth, discuss! And please spoiler everything that needs spoilering. Like that Rastlin turns evil. Oops. Sorry. But I mentioned that already, didn't I?
Also: Last few threads seemed to A) Die, and
Answer the questions already posed. But what ever, live fast die young eh?
Introduction
I stumbled across (in a dusty box in my parent's attic) a bunch of old fantasy books I read when I was a kid. Alas, Dragonlance was not among them, but there were some smattering of Star Wars (Shudder), Feist, David Eddings and some bits and pieces like that Stephen King fantasy novel which I quite enjoyed, Eyes Of The Dragon. So I got thinking: Surely not all fantasy novels were as bad as I remember them?
Surely the writing wasn't so overwritten? There has to be some good books out there!
But first what is fantasy novel?
They come in many forms, from the classic awe inspiring:
To the more modern, but almost as good:
To the "Oh god I have no idea what this word means":
To the "God this is long, I've read a thousand pages and i'm still only one third of the way through the book":
To the "Hey, the hero is totally gay for the other lead character" aka "I was too young to understand the exploration of the themes present in this novel":
To the infantile, but still highly enjoyable:
To the, who the fuck are we kidding, this is absolute shit:
(We still love Feist for the Riftwar and Serpentwar Sagas, we just don't like Talon. He gives us the shits.)
To the more modern, but almost as good:
To the "Oh god I have no idea what this word means":
To the "God this is long, I've read a thousand pages and i'm still only one third of the way through the book":
To the "Hey, the hero is totally gay for the other lead character" aka "I was too young to understand the exploration of the themes present in this novel":
By shadows, she means... well... you know what I mean.
To the infantile, but still highly enjoyable:
To the, who the fuck are we kidding, this is absolute shit:
So why does this warrant its own thread?
Well because these aren't normal books, and require a special thread. We're special people.
They illicit a certain special joy, in which we can overlook certain deficiencies if the plot is epic enough, or you have a bad ass mother fucking black wizard like Rastilin. Or a Wizzard.
What do we want to discuss?
Inherently, we wish to work out what is good and what is bad. So people may read them.
Note: What makes a bad novel is not that it is "Really slow for the first half" like Dune, or that the "Hero is gay." But more serious things like: "The character is the best at everything he does and is totally one dimensional." (Like Talon) or that he is "So testosterone filled, he's nearly a walking Dark Elf Hardon." (Drizzt, apparently.)
Straight away we have some topics to work for our initial discussion:
- Are the new Feist books any good? I hear there are Elfs that fly spaceships is this true?
- Is Drizzt a walking hardon? Should I read the Icewind Dale books?
- I didn't like the Eddings book with the Cat that was a god - Should I explore him further?
- Anything the hell you want that is about or tangentially related to a book that involves, dungeons, dragons, magic, sandworms, the force, wizards or wizzards.
Go forth, discuss! And please spoiler everything that needs spoilering. Like that Rastlin turns evil. Oops. Sorry. But I mentioned that already, didn't I?
Also: Last few threads seemed to A) Die, and
Answer the questions already posed. But what ever, live fast die young eh? 
Lord Of The Pants on
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Having never read it before.
Pikapuff would have a shit fit about it, as these books go out of their way to spoil themselves with the god damned methods of laying out the general plot.
Still pretty good. I just finished book five.
I haven't enjoyed any fantasy I've read since highschool until I read Ice and Fire.
I bought one a couple months ago because I was probably thinking of the Abercrombie books. I got a few pages into it and then dropped it off on my nightstand and haven't touched it since. I'm not sure I remember why.
Mad props for putting The Gormenghast trilogy on the list though it barely qualifies as fantasy by my standards. It seems like the second book really changes in tone and I just couldn't get through it despite still liking it very much.
If you want a list of good contemporary authors you need George R. R. Martin and China Mieville up there stat.
Sure, it repeats the same damn themes over and over again.
Yes, a ton of them are westerns or Sci Fi with magic and swords and shit.
Yes, a bunch of them aren't the best written in the world.
It's the whole idea though of a world similar but completely different from our own that's so damn attractive.
All possible avenues of discussion for A Song of Ice and Fire have been exhausted, up to and including kidnapping George R. R. Martin and making him walk on a treadmill.
The David Eddings Diamond Throne & Domes of Fire Sparhawk series always amused me alot. I thought the inter-character banter was always pretty witty.
Terry Brooks Landover novels were pretty trashy though, I think I have the whole series, or close to it. I cant put my finger on why they suck, they just dont feel very strong.
However, the Word & The Void series, of which I only have 1 book, "Running with the demon" was pretty amazing, and I really should go pick up some more novels of it.
I picked up "The Great Book of Amber" by Roger Zelazny, which is 9 books in 1 or something. Great series.
Also got the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks, great series, everytime I pick them up, I cant put them down again until the whole series is finished.
MWO: Adamski
Also I submit the Death Gate Cycle for fans of some nice popcorn fantasy.
Take the authors and some of the ideas of Dragonlance, add a few years of improvements of their writing, and take out the D&D and you get six highly enjoyable books.
The first 5 books rock, with their cocks out. It's pretty 70's, but it's totally rad.
I recommend it to everyone, ever.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Heretical as all get out, but pretty awesome none the less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_Academicals
So soon.
It's pretty good, but has it's own style. It's very much like a novel written from a common soldier's point of view.
I like the first 3 alot and I think afterwards they get progressively less and less good.
Agreed. Any thread claiming to be about Fantasy literature without including ASOIAF (as at least a throw away "Read this") is to be ridiculed.
Also, didn't we have a fantasy thread at some point? I remember voting on books and stuff.
Which isn't necessarily bad. But he's getting old.
I can't wait
but it will be bittersweet, seeing as it might very well be the last one
he's not just getting old, he has dementia and he's dying
A Song of Ice and Fire - George R R Martin: Needed to be said. Let's move on.
Prince of Nothing trilogy - R Scott Bakker: A dark, philisophacal and occasionally disturbing (depending on the reader) series. Very good though. Not for the faint of heart however.
It's the first in a set of 3 series. The first book of the second series is already out and the next book is coming out next year. Author is also fairly regular in his releases, which is nice.
The First Law - Joe Abercrombie: A trilogy (completed) that does everything it can to kick over all the cliches and standards of epic fantasy and drown them in their own blood. Prose isn't anything spectacular (like the above 2), but it's a good read.
The Long Price Quartet - Daniel Abraham: A great read. 4 not-too-long books and the series is finished. Very good prose and a great, non-standard story.
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch: It's Ocean's Eleven meets ASOIAF. Lots of fun. It's the first in a projected 7 part series (book 3 is coming at some point in the future), but each book is standalone.
Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson: A very fun read and a personal favorite. Basically, the apocalypse has already come and the Dark Lord won and has enslaved the ash-covered world that is left over. Also contains one of the best magic systems ever in fantasy. The only downside is that, as the series goes on, the author's prudishness about showing sex can become a bit irritating.
Malazan Book of the Fallen - Steven Erikson: There's a whole thread on this already. Large, overly complex and varying in quality (the latest book was, imo, utter shit). But still, worth looking into. It's large, dense complicated, epic and makes no apologies for any of it. You should give it a try.
The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan: Wait, you haven't read this already? /slap
Perdido Street Station/The Scar/Iron Council - China Mieville: Mieville's Bas-Lag books. Each is standalone, but you should probably read them in published order. Great Prose and very atypical. But good.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke: A Victorian Fantasy written by a modern author in a Victorian Style. It's got a very interesting feel. Starts a bit slow, but it's a very fun read.
For a quick idea, this is probably my favorite quote from the book:
The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick : A old classic, but still good. Also, his newest Dragons of Babel is good too and set in the same world.
funny you should mention that
i read that book because it is professor X's favorite book
It's one of the best fantasy books ever written, so yeah.
From what I remember, it's very very terse prose. And because of the limited viewpoint, there are a few times where it gets a bit WTF from lack of explination. And it also gets really weird in later books. Still fun though.
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It's a ridiculous book and I absolutely love it.
For some reason I also liked the first 3 books in the Rhapsody/The Symphony of Ages series. really. Guess I'm easy to entertain? When I think about it, it was pretty corny at times.
Is that your way of saying you didn't like the final book?
I can scarcely remember the end of the story, but goddamn did I love the books that took place in that first world. I also was a huge fan of the magic utilized in the books, with spells being more complex and difficult based on how unlikely they were to happen naturally.
I've pretty much given up on fantasy these days, but still treasure gems like Bridge of Birds or Little, Big. Well-written stuff that doesn't use the bumper kit of fantasy cliche for a plot. Stuff like the very strange stories of William Hope Hodgson, the solidly entertaining Lankhmar tales of Fritz Lieber, the erudite and layered Neveryona books of Samuel R Delaney or the disturbing tales of Johnathan Caroll. Or of course Gene Wolfe, whose Wizard Knight books took the hoariest of cliches and made them feel fresh and dangerous again.
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Agreed. I've only just recently started reading the Malazan books, and I'm quite enjoying them, but by and large I can't bring myself to read fantasy anymore unless it's particularly good (like the aforementioned Gene Wolfe).
Granted, once the end of the Wheel of Time stuff starts coming, I'll read them, if only because I've read all the previous ones and good or bad, I need to know how things end.
A total page-turner, except near the end it gets a bit boring, but it's okay because the rest is so good
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Everybody needs to be reading these. Right now.
Modern Day Pulp Fantasy.
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