Fantasy authors you (and I) should NEVER read

[stevenharper]

I liked Piers Anthony when I was very young, and now I can't imagine what the heck I was thinking. Same for David Eddings. I was a huge fan of his once, and now . . .

However, I do owe Eddings a big debt. On the first day of class when I was a college freshman, a woman sat down next to me because she noticed I was reading QUEEN OF SORCERY, which she had just finished. We struck up a conversation and started a friendship. I later met her roommate, who eventually became my wife.

So David Eddings set me up.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

These books definitely walk a line. They are structured and have the "tropes" but they exist within a scientific explanation. (Not so much Pern as the other two.) Or are a mix of science fiction and fantasy spun together.

I think Wolfe's term "Urth" kind of captures this dichotomy (or mixture I guess). "Ur" meaning old. But it's Earth of the far, far future. So it's futuristic science fiction with the old-age fantasy elements. Or, as I've heard it described, "it's so far in the future, it looks like the past."

I concur. You can have a lot of fun arguing about where to draw the dividing line between SF and fantasy, but to do that, you first have to define them, so you can specify where each centers.

I don't think you can draw a hard and fast line. There are too many edge cases that straddle boundaries. I see both as subsets of fantastic literature, which overlap and blend in various areas.

I call the Urth of the New Sun SF, but I'm aware of the fantasy tropes.

All I can say to this is... Publish it! That description/speculation was more interesting and exciting than anything I'd read in WoT in at least 1 and a half full books!

Thanks, I suppose.

Jordan has been pretty good about not going where you think he is with the series, and that's about as unexpected a conclusion as I can come up with.

Getting a bit more serious, WoT presents teleological issues, and I don't know if Jordan really planned to address them. In that sense, WoT and Urth share some characteristics. Urth is about sin and redemption, and before the powers out there will consent to kindle a new sun, man must atone for prior bad behavior. WoT has Morgaine piously proclaiming the Creator is good, yet the Creator made the Wheel of Time, and started it spinning and weaving the Pattern over endless cycles in which Shaitan attempts tp break out of his prison and the Dragon must face him and stuff him back, while millions ultimately suffer and die.

Christian theology calls this the problem of pain, and the answer to "How can a just and loving God permit this?" tends to be "We don't know, but we must believe in God and trust that He has a plan and all will be well in the end." WoT hasn't really addressed the question of what about all of this makes the Creator "good". We also get no real feel for Shaitan's motivations. If I were dropped into that world and could talk to one of the Forsaken, I'd ask two questions. First, "You know this has been happening for endless cycles. What makes you think that this time Shaitan will succeed in breaking free and remaking creation to his liking?" Second, "You expect to live forever and rule the world as the Great Lord's viceroys. What makes you think creation as he'll redo it if he can will even have a world you can live in, let alone rule?"

If I really wanted to have fun, I'd suggest that Shaitan's motives are unhappiness over the way many millions have suffered and died, and a desire to end the cycles and break the Pattern, allowing humanity to forge its own destiny. Let's muddy the waters a bit and question just who the good guys are.

But then, I'm increasingly displeased with most fantasy, precisely because of questions of motivation. When you toss deities in the mix, the bad guys all tend to be spoiled cosmic children, throwing magical tantrums because they can't have their own way.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by stevenharper

I liked Piers Anthony when I was very young, and now I can't imagine what the heck I was thinking. Same for David Eddings. I was a huge fan of his once, and now . . .

However, I do owe Eddings a big debt. On the first day of class when I was a college freshman, a woman sat down next to me because she noticed I was reading QUEEN OF SORCERY, which she had just finished. We struck up a conversation and started a friendship. I later met her roommate, who eventually became my wife.

So David Eddings set me up.

Anthony has done good work. I recommend _Macroscope_, _Cthon_ and _Pthor_, _Prostho Plus_ and the Orn, Omnivore, 0X trilogy among others. He needs to be judged by more than Xanth.

And I'll recommend The Belgariad, too. I just can't recommend anything else of Eddings', because he only has one story and cast of characters.
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Dennis

[BenG]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And I'll recommend The Belgariad, too. I just can't recommend anything else of Eddings', because he only has one story and cast of characters.
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Dennis

And they all seem to have the same personality.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If I really wanted to have fun, I'd suggest that Shaitan's motives are unhappiness over the way many millions have suffered and died, and a desire to end the cycles and break the Pattern, allowing humanity to forge its own destiny. Let's muddy the waters a bit and question just who the good guys are.

I think you've just outlined His Dark Wheel.

[hokie]

.....

[freerun]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Some of you will give me crap for this but I propose avoiding Stephen R. Donaldson's "Thomas Covenant" series. It wasn't badly written but I guess I just need SOMEONE to empathize with. I think all it did was give me a headache (as did some of Tolkien's meanderings but THAT at least had a payoff).

I loved the Covenant series, I would nominate his next series, which I hated so much i can't remember the titles, as the books I would recommend staying away from.

[BenG]

I liked the Covenant series but Donaldson's sci-fi series The Gap Cycle (loosely based on Wagner's Ring Cycle) were too much for me. The characters were even more unlikeable than Thomas Covenant. I gave up after 2 books.

[clockworkzombie]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Anthony has done good work. I recommend _Macroscope_, _Cthon_ and _Pthor_, _Prostho Plus_ and the Orn, Omnivore, 0X trilogy among others. He needs to be judged by more than Xanth.

And I'll recommend The Belgariad, too. I just can't recommend anything else of Eddings', because he only has one story and cast of characters.
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Dennis

I like a lot of Anthonys work. I am planning to pick up a few Xanth books again as I had read the others in my public library, but only the first 5 perhaps.

In one of the Xanth books he had an article after the end of the novel that talked about how he writes books, he writes the outline and fleshes it out a little then attempts to sell it to publishers. If they do not buy it he does not write the book. So now he does not spend time writing a book only to find he cannot sell it, part of the contract negotiation is a price and delivery time.

I noticed the comment on the GOR series. A friend told me the first 6 or so were superb then it got on horseback and galloped away. I am in Australia so when I tried to buy the first book I was hit by the dreaded geographic restrictions.

Edit

I have just finished The Wizard of Karres and I enjoyed it. In reference to the earlier person calling it bad I have to say it is not as good as the original. I think the missing ingredient is humour. The humour is different to the original and is missing a certain something along with distrust and disrespect for authority.

Eric Frank Russell could have written a sequel with the same humour and anti authority angle I think.

I remember reading some Christopher Anvil in the 80s and I think he could do a similar thing, I have just purchased an Anvil book and am looking forward to reading it and will see if my memory is correct.

[nikkers]

I've tried and tried but I just couldn't read Lord of the Rings.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by nikkers

I've tried and tried but I just couldn't read Lord of the Rings.

That's a shame I'm re-reading it now, for the first time in English, and I am so impressed by the prose. You can't rush through it, you have to read it slowly, but I find it quite wonderful. That said, I'm now 37 and I wouldn't have appreciated this aspect of writing nearly as much in my twenties as I do now. As I have found, one's tastes change and develop over time. Authors that I couldn't spare a moment ten years ago, I now find I like very much. And there's other authors I'm still waiting for, but perhaps in ten years' time....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by clockworkzombie

I like a lot of Anthonys work. I am planning to pick up a few Xanth books again as I had read the others in my public library, but only the first 5 perhaps.

I'd make it the first three, but your tolerance level may be greater.

In one of the Xanth books he had an article after the end of the novel that talked about how he writes books, he writes the outline and fleshes it out a little then attempts to sell it to publishers. If they do not buy it he does not write the book. So now he does not spend time writing a book only to find he cannot sell it, part of the contract negotiation is a price and delivery time.

That's actually standard practice for an established author. Books are sold based on an outline and sample chapters. New authors will have to submit a complete manuscript, simply to prove they can complete a book, but an author with a track record will simply float a proposal, and complete the book upon getting a contract.

I noticed the comment on the GOR series. A friend told me the first 6 or so were superb then it got on horseback and galloped away. I am in Australia so when I tried to buy the first book I was hit by the dreaded geographic restrictions.

When and where did you try to get them? I don't think they are in print in the US. Norman did the first 6 or so for Ballantine books, then shifted to DAW Books when Don Wollhiem was still alive. He got dropped by DAW after Don's daughter Betsy took over upon his death. Norman claims his sales were fine, thank you, and blames getting dropped on Betsy and editor Sheila Gilbert, who objected to the female slavery motif. They were picked up some years back by a US porn publisher called Masquerade Press, but that no longer exists.

The first six being readable is about right. The premise is that Gor is "counter-Earth", held on the othr side of the sun from us by the advanced science of the insectoid Priest-Kings who rule the planet. The Priest-Kings have been kidnapping people from Earth for centuries and dropping them on Gor, so the planet has pockets of human cultures from across Earth and throughout history. The Priest-Kings control technological development, so things like building technology and medicine are advanced (they have electric lights and "Stabilization serums" that stop aging), but combat is mano a mano with edged weapons.

The protagonist, Tarl Cabot, is a John Carter type who is dropped on Gor and becomes a Tarnsman - a rider of giant hawk like birds - and a renowned warrior. A background cultural bit in the early novels is that most Gorean women are slaves. The hero's girlfriend is a "Free Companion" - a member of an order who rejects slavery as a woman's normal state. She is kidnapped early on and Cabot sets out to find and free her, but she is soon enough forgotten. Female slavery becomes a dominant foreground motif, based on the idea that a woman can only be truly happy, fulfilled (and multi-orgasmic) if she totally submits to a strong male master.

Tarl Cabot increasingly becomes an arch-typical Gorean male, and becomes increasingly one dimensional and boring in the process. I didn't stop reading the books because I objected to the premise - I stopped because I lost interest in continual BDSM fantasy masquerading as SF.

I have just finished The Wizard of Karres and I enjoyed it. In reference to the earlier person calling it bad I have to say it is not as good as the original. I think the missing ingredient is humour. The humour is different to the original and is missing a certain something along with distrust and disrespect for authority.

Eric Frank Russell could have written a sequel with the same humour and anti authority angle I think.

I remember reading some Christopher Anvil in the 80s and I think he could do a similar thing, I have just purchased an Anvil book and am looking forward to reading it and will see if my memory is correct.

Schmitz had a gentle and wry humor, and a lively sense of the absurd. Russell might have been able to do it, though I get a different feel from his work and I'm not sure he'd have quite the right fit.

I don't really see Christopher Anvil fitting either, though I think I see why you do.

Sadly, Schmitz had completed a sequel to _The Witches of Karres_, but the manuscript was lost in a move.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ea

That's a shame I'm re-reading it now, for the first time in English, and I am so impressed by the prose. You can't rush through it, you have to read it slowly, but I find it quite wonderful. That said, I'm now 37 and I wouldn't have appreciated this aspect of writing nearly as much in my twenties as I do now. As I have found, one's tastes change and develop over time. Authors that I couldn't spare a moment ten years ago, I now find I like very much. And there's other authors I'm still waiting for, but perhaps in ten years' time....

I concur. I first read the series when Tolkien was still alive, when an English teacher decided that if I was going to read things that weren't the assigned texts in her class, it might as well be something good, and handed me PB copies of the series. The prose style took getting used to. I had to push myself to read the first hundred pages of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ - but once I had, the book kicked in, and I read the rest over a weekend. I've reread it many times since, and I find something new each time.

Some books you can't actively read: you have to learn to relax and let the book read itself to you. Another like that for me was E. R. Eddison's _The Worm Ourobouous_. Eddison was a Victorian gentleman writing Elizabethan prose. The prose took considerable adjustment, but once I did it went down like fine cognac.
______
Dennis

[junkml]

Originally Posted by nikkers

I've tried and tried but I just couldn't read Lord of the Rings.

Don't feel bad, I've tried to read it three times in the last three decades and have never been able to finish the trilogy. I find it so tedious and boring that I put it down and never pick it up again.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Some books you can't actively read: you have to learn to relax and let the book read itself to you. ...

This is exactly how I feel about LOTR. I did know and like the story beforehand though, but this reading is quite different from the ones I've done before.

Though, if the story appears to somehow resist the reader, it's probably better put it off for later - or not read at all - better to concentrate on something else. I have been waiting for some years for Thomas Mann to get more approachable - I'm still not there, but I have the feeling it will be worth it in time.

Edit: that idea of standing back and letting the work speak for itself is much the same way I try to approach art - especially modern art. Oftentimes I find it pays off not to rush.