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Violanthe
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 New Trends in SF&F
Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:57 am |
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What trends have you noticed recently in alternative reality fiction? Which ones are on target? Which ones are getting on your nerves? Which ones are you hoping will die out altogether?
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Violet "Violanthe" Kane
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Mervi
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Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 3:31 pm |
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Mediavel Big Fat Fantasy gets on my nerves and I try to avoid it. Books in general getting longer and series getting longer are also very irritating. It seems that writing is done more for the big word count rather than trying to tell a story. Too much padding!
I've sampled some of the New Weird stuff and most of that is good, such as Gaiman's work. But most of that is still sitting on my to-read-pile. |
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Violanthe
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Mervi
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Posted: Wed Sep 20, 2006 9:34 am |
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Well, since you asked, I'm going to presume that I'm not going to be banned for answering.
Eddings: he writes the same thing all over again.
Jordan: do I really need to say more?
Martin: it's going to be 4 books, no wait 6, no wait 8, and I'll split all the coming books in half... 
Brooks: his first series was derivative and unoriginal. Nothing has convinced me that he has improved.
Salvatore: although the books aren't as thick, he really churns out series.
Goodkind: sigh.
Salvatore is the only one that I've kept on reading because I review his books.
I suspect that Erikson might belong to this group but at least he is talking about ending the series at some point. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:33 am |
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I don't ban anyone for contibuting opinions to an intelligent conversation.
I don't read any of the series you mentioned except for Martin. I do hope he doesn't drag on too long, in part because I'd like to see something new from him eventually. The first three books were excellent, but book four shows since of wear.
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Violet "Violanthe" Kane
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Peter
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:44 am |
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Mervi, you're a person after my own heart. Just curious to know if you want to go into depth on why you find Jordan the way you do?
Personally, it's his women (his portrayal of them anyway) that grates on my nerves, but there's a lot more if you want to discuss it.
I've never read any Brooks or Goodkind and I struggled through the first Martin book, Game of Thrones or whatever it was called. The guy is simply not an entertaining writer, something that Feist excels at, whatever his lck of skill at originality.
Peter |
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Mervi
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:24 pm |
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| Violanthe wrote: | | I don't ban anyone for contibuting opinions to an intelligent conversation. |
Thanks. Some Martin fans are... borderline fanatics.
Johnnycab, I've only read the first half of Jordan's first WoT book. However, the Jordan fans and haters are quite vocal, and it's pretty hard to avoid all the discussion about his books so I've got the distinct impression that people are unhappy with the length of the series. I've also got friends who buy all of his books and still complain about how the newest ones don't actually advance the plot at all.
It's been a few years since I read the book but from what I can remember about things I didn't like:
Generic mediavel world, teenaged male protagonists, and a magically powerful woman needs a male guardian (WTF??). The beginning was just too bland and generic right down to the boys being orphaned to interest me.
WoT is being translated into Finnish and every English book has been split in half by the Finnish publisher so the length of the series has doubled here. |
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Violanthe
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Epitarc
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Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 5:39 pm |
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Hm, guess I'm one of those fanatic GRR Martin fans....
Sort of anyway, agree that the fourth one was "less good"...
Erikson in my opinion does deserve to be on that list, mainly for his tendency of letting everything be a part of the plot that you didn't know existed behind the plan that was just a cover for the strategem that were used to hide the plot of.... and so on. Still buy the books though.
In general I agree about the series getting longer. While my local bookstore doesn't carry that many fantasybooks, those it does carry are always "book one of the trilogy of the evil hairpins" or some such. I actually have difficulty remebering when I last read a book that was just a book, and not part of a series.
This doesn't necessarily mean that the books are bad, just that there seems to be fewer single story books out there. |
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Violanthe
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Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:25 am |
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In our recent Q&A with Jennifer Fallon, she discussed the multi-book thing in fantasy. She writes trilogies herself. She said that so much work goes into creating a world, that she hates to dispense with it after just one book.
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