OT-Black Company

[MaxWilson]

RE Gene Wolf: I keep meaning to read him. Authors that I respect have praised him highly (Steven Brust comes to mind) and I'm curious to see what they're so in awe of.

RE GRRM: I would have enjoyed ASoIaF more if it weren't so perverted. I read an interview where GRRM commented that he liked Tyrion best because he empathizes with the "horny little $#@&^" and this made me look pretty hard at the books. I started to feel like all the incest (what, 5 or 6 counts?) and other unpleasantness was there to titillate and not to horrify, and that turned me off the books.

-Max

[Edi]

MaxWilson said:
RE Gene Wolf: I keep meaning to read him. Authors that I respect have praised him highly (Steven Brust comes to mind) and I'm curious to see what they're so in awe of.

RE GRRM: I would have enjoyed ASoIaF more if it weren't so perverted. I read an interview where GRRM commented that he liked Tyrion best because he empathizes with the "horny little $#@&^" and this made me look pretty hard at the books. I started to feel like all the incest (what, 5 or 6 counts?) and other unpleasantness was there to titillate and not to horrify, and that turned me off the books.

-Max

Quoted for truth. Never mind the way the Daenerys marriage scene is described, which amounts to basically a rather graphic description of pedophilia. *shudder*

No, I won't be touching his books too much, especially given how the plot went to crap in Storm of Swords when he killed off too many characters.

[djo]

It all depends on your tastes and sensibilities, of course, but Gene Wolfe is a serious writer is a way than none of the others mentioned so far are. Many of the other mentioned works have their merits. GRRM writes well, although I personally couldn't finish "Game of Thrones". Brust and Cook write fine entertainment. Tolkien sired the modern fantasy genre.

But Wolfe is the one you want, after Tolkien, if you want to discuss lasting value. They ain't gonna award a Nobel for science fiction or fantasy, not anytime soon, but if they wanted to, with Borges dead, it'd go to Wolfe. Many of his books are literary, no question. Some of them leave you with the impression that you weren't smart enough to read them. And that's not a path to popularity.

He writes on big themes, in original worlds, with incredible characters. He doesn't slow down for you...he writes the story, and it's your job to read it, whether he's using words that have been obsolete for several centuries, or whether his narrator is unreliable due to personality or injury, or whether he just hasn't told you the things the narrator knows, and expects you to have figured out on your own. But everything comes together, and the sum is far greater than the parts.

The aforementioned "Wizard Knight" duology is a good start. They are as straightforward as Wolfe gets, and you see the way he handles worlds and characters (and words, for that matter). He's taken the classic trope of the boy in our world falling into a fantasy world and coming of age as a hero and twisted it inside out a few times until it's become a study in the growing maturity of a hero. It's a world based on a well-known Earthly mythology, for cryin' out loud, and yet the whole thing comes off fresh and original.

I have to follow up on something Endoperez said upthread...

Endoperez said:At times, it's more like horror, except it made me uncomfortable unlike any horror book I've read. Not afraid, but uncomfortable - I didn't know if I wanted to read what would happen, because if it went wrong, it would go bad.

That's a familiar feeling. Wolfe can make you feel, and not the way you expected. There's a point in his "Book of the Short Sun" where the viewpoint character becomes scary, not because he's evil, but because he is good. It was like reading the life of a saint. I felt uncomfortable not knowing if I wanted things to go right.

Thus endeth my rant...

[djo]

And here's a link to a whimsical little essay on "Reading Gene Wolfe" by Neil Gaiman, himself no mean fantasist:

http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2007/gwng0704.htm

[HoneyBadger]

A Game of Thrones was revolutionary, to me anyway, in that every single fantasy trope got turned on it's head, while still being set in a fantasy setting that lived and breathed and was intriguing. The hero of the story was a deformed midget, the princess was being sold as a slave to a bunch of barbarians, and nobody rescued her, her brother, the rightful king, was vile, and died 2 seconds into the book, the dragons were all dead, the villains were pretty much a matter of opinion, atleast at the time, and the overall theme was mature and dark and-atleast for the first book, full of intricate characters and machinations and elements which intrigued, rather than annoyed. It stood out to me, strongly, and made me want more-and then ofcourse the sequils disappointed and disappointed again. But for a time, for that first book, it was extraordinary to me, even the pornographic scenes, the confused and askew moral compass, and the character slaughter. I hadn't seen those things before, and they did make the world the author was creating more real. And there's no real reason that those elements couldn't have continued to make for a great series. It was the fault of the author that the series has fallen apart, not the content that he was continuing.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, I was initially attracted to the series by a recommendation that it was fantasy evil done *right*. Evil, in practice, isn't the megalomaniacal Dark Overlord who wants to turn the world into zombies, it's something a lot more human and (on some level) understandable. I liked "A Game of Thrones" because it wasn't entirely clear who the "good guys" and "bad guys" were or that the "good guys" were all going to wind up on the same side. It made it seem more relevant to real life. Some parts of the series have apparently continued to develop on that theme--Jaime has turned out to be a surprisingly complex character by all reports--but I haven't been following closely.

Steven Erikson's writing has its faults (SE and ICE have developed a lot of characters over the years and perhaps sometimes too many of them wind up in the a single book) but 1.) he writes a book a year, and the MBotF has a definite end in sight two years from now, and 2.) it's not pornographic. Ugly things happen (sieges and rapes and tragic murders just when you least expect it) but neither the author nor the protagonists enjoy it. Some of the more twisted villains do (Tanal Yathvanar springs to mind)...

-Max

P.S. I LOVE the redemption of the Jaghut villain Pannion in Memories of Ice.

[JimMorrison]

This thread has officially become awesome reading. 8 )

(Sort of OT Warning, I got really carried away, read only if your head hasn't already exploded from the rest of the thread.)


Unfortunately, I haven't a lot to add (edit just before actually posting, this is a LIE, I have a lot to add). For the last 10 years or so, I've upheld a strict policy of only reading non-fiction, or if I do read fiction, that it is something that has real literary merit. For instance, the last fiction that I read was "The World Inside", by Robert Silverberg. Great depth and storytelling, and really makes you think - I highly recommend it.

It's rare that fantasy is written anymore that really opens up your mind, and makes you THINK. Well, my mind, and making ME think anyways - after the sum total of all words which I have consumed. Isn't that sad? It's a genre that is supposed to be about imagination and vision more than any other, and yet what do people do with all of that potential? Well, they do one of two things - they either regurgitate more of the same to make a buck, or they create something vividly their own... but their creation ends up expressing little or nothing, it paints a pretty picture, but when you look closer, it doesn't show you anything more.

I do have my guilty pleasures from the past, including Anne McCaffrey (who seems to have few fans around here! come on, I found her when I was 11...), and the Dragonlance series which likewise started when I was in my prime of reading. Which btw, from what I recall, the original Dragonlance trilogy is not just fun, but rather innovative, AND thought provoking (at least, if you haven't read fantasy for 20 years already, and thought the duality of good and evil into the ground).


I would be very grateful if someone could turn me on to some modern fantasy that would really reward me for my time reading it. Unfortunately, I can smell empty literary calories a mile away - and I am on a strict diet now. I'm intrigued by a couple of the authors referenced here, but also feel vindicated by the general pattern of "post 1: hey I think this author is so good and worth reading" segueing into "post 2: that author has good qualities, but let me list everything that's wrong with his work". Definitely saves me the time of finding out the hard way that some novel or series or other would just be me adding another name to my list of "hack authors I would like to lecture about the point of writing".


Final note on that subject - I am not 100% against fluff, if it is not advertised as more. For example, the Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison. It's just FUN, and easy reading cause you know it's just fun. And of course any books that push themselves off as fluff, but really are more, like Hitchhiker's Guide, et al. That's not an easy trick to pull off, and I greatly admire it.

[HoneyBadger]

Did somebody invoke the name of James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DeGriz? Wow, the Stainless Steel Rat was an enormous influence on me, in my formative years. I still read them. Harrison's DeathWorld series is another fun read, by the way-although I understand the last few books are in untranslated Russian, or something.

It's funny how both Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero series and Hitchhiker's feature planets made from-or atleast covered with-pure gold.

Mostly I go for older authors-there's just so much material out there!-but here's a few of the new garde that I do recommend.

James Vandermeer-Vandermeer teaches creative writing in Florida, and I'd love to attend his classes, because his writing is amazingly imaginative, inventive, and evocative, rich with atmosphere, subtle flavors, and a strong presence. Reading his books always gives me the same feeling as going on vacation to somewhere exotic.

David Drake is a solid author who's written mostly military sci-fi, but has recently produced some very decent fantasy. The Lord of the Isles series is quite good-basically sword and sorcery, it's entertaining and fun, not too heavy, bu written with enough intelligence and imagination to intrigue.

Janny Wurts is another excellent author-often overshadowed by Raymond Feist whom she's worked with, I consider her the stronger of the pair. Try The Master of Whitestorm for starters: It's a standalone, and very powerful.

Neil Gaiman is, yes, as good as the hype. Everything he writes is gold, as far as I'm concerned, but I'd suggest starting with Neverwhere, if you've never read him, and follow it up with American Gods.

I have to mention John Crowley. If you haven't read "Little, Big", do so now. It's the best fantasy novel I've ever read, even though it's set in contemporary America.

I really, really like Tom Deitz. I'm often surprised that he seems to always go unmentioned in these sorts of discussions. I don't find many grievous faults in his writing, and the high notes are quite satisfying. It's not the deepest fantasy in the world, it's true, but there's generally enough substance to last one beyond a given book-and I like the way the books themselves make me feel. There's a sort of "double-fantasy" going on, because Deitz manages to capture the essence of a youthfulness, and a youth, that I find myself envying. I'd switch places with several of his human, flawed characters-with the many ups and downs they experience-than I would with many a larger than life "heroic legend". He writes about people I actually wish I knew, in real life, and how many authors do that?

Stephen Brust is a wonderful writer, and I can't recommend him enough, except that I just can't abide his Taltos novels. To me they read like an internet chatroom live action role-playing melodrama, where everybody's part dragon, part elf, and part supermodel, with a mandatory tragic past, lost love, sentient weapon, adopted children, sparkling emerald eyes, and enough powerful friends to gag a senate committee. So, take that as you will, but I do consider him extraordinarily talented, aside from that. Try "Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill" It's not fantasy, but it's good.

David Gemmell is excellent. A bit over the top, consistently, and some of his stuff just doesn't "work" for me, but I think that's more me than him. Good, gritty stuff though, that I respect.

And Terry Pratchett. Light, humorous fantasy, that manages to be better, richer, deeper, more wonderful than 99% of the stuff that's really trying hard. Pratchett has my vote for immortality.


http://www.sff.net/people/Amy.Sheldon/listcont.htm

This is a really good site that lays out the details on a *lot* of fantasy authors-contemporary through classical. Should be helpful! (although it's too even-handed in my opinion, when it comes to recommending authors and books).

[Lingchih]

Why did you not mention Gene Wolfe, Honeybadger? His work is mostly sci-fi, but his two most recent books, The Knight, and The Wizard, are certainly high fantasy at it's best. Although some could even construe his masterworks, Shadow and Claw, to be fantasy.

[HoneyBadger]

Oh and Gene Wolfe. I was going to, but to be honest, I'm not as familiar with him as I'd like. I'll correct that in time, but I don't know enough about his writing to judge it very well.