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Old 01-15-2011, 05:13 AM   #223
AndrewH
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Join Date: Jul 2010
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jaxx6166 View Post
I also lost my mind somewhere through Brent Weeks' "Way of Shadows"
I loved Brent Weeks' whole Night Angel trilogy. The Way of Shadows was well-written, fast-paced (after the first few chapters), plot lines were well-controlled, and character development was excellent.

As to the topic, I couldn't stand the first Thomas Covenant book, and didn't try the rest. As stated elsewhere in this thread, the enormously painful choice of words was... enormously painful. The whole, "This is all a dream, so I'm going to behave like an ass" was completely unbelievable.

A fantasy writer I haven't yet seen named is China Miéville. Oh, I liked Perdido Street Station and might even recommend it, but avoid the rest of his books. If you thought Stephen Donaldson was bad about using obscure words from the thesaurus, wait till you read Perdido Street Station, The City & The City, or Kraken. His thesaurus-abusing prose gets worse and worse with each book, as do his British colloquialisms. I suspect his next novel, Embassytown, will be completely indecipherable.

If you can get past the language, Perdido Street Station was a mostly fun steampunk fantasy... though the spider should have been cut from the story. However, The City & The City was just stupid. Michael Moorcock said it was based on string theory physics, but he obviously didn't read it. If he had,
Spoiler:
he'd have noticed that breaching in Besźel and Ul Qoma was entirely a social issue, not a matter of crossing dimensions or some other nonsense.
Kraken was even worse; I don't even know where to begin. Interesting concept, poor execution. I will say this though, the guy has imagination.
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