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This is spergy of me but I wish the man would give us an official map already!! And I second the wish that the wiki was more fleshed out. Reading hours of speculations about this and that really helps me absorb myself in these types if books (which is why I read them). Love this series though can't wait to get red country!
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Feb 17, 2013 02:03
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Walh Hara posted:That's a bad example of bad lore telling. Sanderson has horrible characterisation is his earlier books (it has improved), but his lore telling in The Way of Kings and mistborn is actually pretty well done.
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Feb 17, 2013 16:41
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Sanderson is great at world building and systems but he has a very mechanical writing style and his characterization is very poor. I just finished Mistborn a few weeks ago and already can't remember most of the character names. The way he writes combat is the polar opposite of Abercrombie too, everything is very exaggerated, drawn out and fantastical. That's not to say people shouldn't try his books, I liked some of them and he has a great work ethic at least but I suspect he just lacks the natural talent of other fantasy authors. I just wouldn't recommend them to fans of Abercrombie books because they are very different.
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Feb 17, 2013 17:40
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Abercrombie just posted some art from the Subterranean Press edition of "The Heroes". Shivers looks exactly like I imagined him.
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Feb 23, 2013 02:04
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I was just coming here to see if anyone had posted that yet, too. Holy poo poo, that is loving amazing! As soon as I opened the image the first thing I thought was, "Hello, new desktop wallpaper!"
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Feb 23, 2013 02:24
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I'm liking the covers for the standalone books much better than the trilogy. I wonder how the jacket art for Red Country will look...
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Feb 23, 2013 03:47
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So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Feb 27, 2013 07:10
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Honest Ray posted:So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Feb 27, 2013 07:17
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Honest Ray posted:So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions? Richard K Morgan's Land Fit for Heroes series reminds me a lot of Abercrombie. edit: To add a bit more, it's a dark and very cynical fantasy series with some humor sprinkled in. It also has deeply flawed and jaded protagonists and the action scenes are brutal. savinhill fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 07:50
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Honest Ray posted:So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions?
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Feb 27, 2013 07:58
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Oops. Ignore.
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Feb 27, 2013 08:00
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savinhill posted:Richard K Morgan's Land Fit for Heroes series reminds me a lot of Abercrombie. The world building is also generally a bit more interesting. The characters probably aren't on average quite as good, though.
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Feb 27, 2013 08:18
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Honest Ray posted:So I've got 60 pages of Red Country left and no more Joe to read. Anyone have any suggestions? Read the Malazan Book of the Fallen books! By the time you finish all fifteen books the next Abercrombie novel should be out. e; R. Scott Bakker's stuff is also pretty good, if you don't mind being exposed to a lot of undergrad philosophy and heavy-handed religious metaphors. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 09:03
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Neurosis posted:The world building is also generally a bit more interesting. The characters probably aren't on average quite as good, though.
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Feb 27, 2013 11:31
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UncleMonkey posted:Fantasy-wise, my plan in the next week or so is to start in on the Malazan Book of the Fallen series and then Black Company. Of course with both those series I realize I'm far, far behind everyone else and maybe you've read them already. But that's what I'm turning to at least. Dont read the Malazan books. They start off strong but then devolve into dragon ball z fan-fiction. As far as the Black company books go, you should limit yourself to the first trilogy. They have a complete storyline and the next two cycles are pretty disappointing.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:40
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Mr.48 posted:Dont read the Malazan books. They start off strong but then devolve into dragon ball z fan-fiction. No, they don't 
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Feb 27, 2013 18:46
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Oh Snapple! posted:No, they don't Yeah, they kind of do. Every book introducing more and more powerful antagonists to keep up with the protagonists turned it into a Saturday morning cartoon essentially. I got sick of it and stopped reading after book 9.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:57
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I agree. I stopped reading around... book 10 I think? I wholeheartedly agree with the 'Dragonball Z style powerups' feeling too. Don't mention that in the Malazan thread though, they get really touchy about it there. 
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Feb 27, 2013 21:16
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You guys stopped reading Malazan at the last book?
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Feb 27, 2013 23:13
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Mr.48 posted:Dont read the Malazan books. They start off strong but then devolve into dragon ball z fan-fiction. As far as the Black company books go, you should limit yourself to the first trilogy. They have a complete storyline and the next two cycles are pretty disappointing.
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Feb 28, 2013 02:31
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Neurosis posted:The world building is also generally a bit more interesting. The characters probably aren't on average quite as good, though. Yeah, I agree and while I think Morgan writes some great dialogue, I'd still have to give the edge to Abercrombie in that category too.
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Feb 28, 2013 02:32
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UncleMonkey posted:Meh, I already have Gardens of the Moon so I figure I might as well give it a shot. It's not like I have much better to do while waiting for Martin to write TWOW sometime in the next decade. At least with Abercrombie we know that once he gets his trilogy mapped out and roughly written the books will come out rather quickly. But I figure we're looking at anywhere between 1-3 years with no Martin/Abercrombie. I have time to fill. If you enjoy Gardens of the Moon (which usually gives people trouble) I'd recommend continuing with Deadhouse Gates. The powerful characters angle doesn't bother me so I don't think the series really goes downhill, but the second book felt like the high point. I will say that finishing up Red Country then diving into the final Malazan book was an awkward transition. Abercrombie has such a natural, comedic style that couldn't be more different from Erikson's meanderings.
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Feb 28, 2013 04:22
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FMguru posted:Read "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. You've just finished a bloody-minded western novel, now step up to the universally-acknowledged masterpiece of the form. While I agree that Blood Meridian is an amazing novel, I wouldn't recommend that anyone actually read it without warning them about Mccarthy's difficult to swallow style and the extremely unconventional structure. Its a literary novel primarily, and while I did find it extremely entertaining, the average reader is going to toss it into the trash as soon as they get to sentences like: Mccarthy posted:A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or saber done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools. That's one sentence, my friends.
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Feb 28, 2013 05:53
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UncleMonkey posted:Meh, I already have Gardens of the Moon so I figure I might as well give it a shot. It's not like I have much better to do while waiting for Martin to write TWOW sometime in the next decade. At least with Abercrombie we know that once he gets his trilogy mapped out and roughly written the books will come out rather quickly. But I figure we're looking at anywhere between 1-3 years with no Martin/Abercrombie. I have time to fill. The problem is that up to book 4ish the series is great which suckers you in to keep reading as the books get worse and worse, hoping in vain that the series will recover. syphon posted:I agree. I stopped reading around... book 10 I think? I wholeheartedly agree with the 'Dragonball Z style powerups' feeling too. Don't mention that in the Malazan thread though, they get really touchy about it there. Yeah I stay away from it to avoid antagonizing people. Its kind of like China Mieville's work, some people just really love style over substance and theres no way to convince them otherwise. Mr.48 fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Feb 28, 2013 |
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Feb 28, 2013 05:59
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Mr.48 posted:Yeah I stay away from it to avoid antagonizing people. Its kind of like China Mieville's work, some people just really love style over substance and theres no way to convince them otherwise. What? Erikson and Mieville have very little in common. Erikson's universe, although I liked it as a teenager, is extremely messy. He goes in a million different directions at once. In contract, I would say Mieville's Bas-Lag series was really pretty tight. It has a great narrative and is not remotely similar to the dragonballz-style "oh wait actually this guy is super powerful and can basically move a sword faster than the speed of light." I can understand if Mieville (and McCarthy for that matter) is a bit too wordy for some people but it doesn't have the same problems as Malazan. To answer the original question, I honestly don't know any authors that can write the kind of hilarious characterization and interesting action sequences as Abercrombie. I would recommend Felix Gilman though, as well as Finch by James Vandermeer or something like that.
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Feb 28, 2013 06:22
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Mr.48 posted:The problem is that up to book 4ish the series is great which suckers you in to keep reading as the books get worse and worse, hoping in vain that the series will recover. No it doesn't. Midnight Tides is one of the best in the series, Bonehunters continues going on strong, Reaper's Gale the same, Toll the Hounds is slow but has one of the best climaxes of the series, Dust of Dreams is good but is mostly setting up for The Crippled God which acts as a strong finish to the series. Anyway, UncleMonkey, I think you'll enjoy your time with Malazan (as long as high fantasy isn't a problem with you). This came up in the Rothfuss thread as well, so I'll just repeat what I posted there since it fits extremely well here: Oh Snapple! posted:Alternate viewpoint: Also, to put this out there: There was a 10 year gap between Erikson writing GotM and the second book of the series, Deadhouse Gates. There is substantial improvement between the two, though at the same time this isn't always a problem. I enjoyed GotM a lot, as did others, but if you end up feeling lukewarm toward it I really do advise giving Deadhouse Gates a read even if you never touch another book in the series.
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Feb 28, 2013 06:58
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Actually, Deadhouse Gates is a just as legitimate place to start the series as GoTM is. I did it this way and although I eventually went back to read GoTM it was Deadhouse Gates that got me going. I'll shutup about Erikson cause this is an Abercrombie thread, but a warning: Malazan stuff is good but you MUST appreciate HIGH FANTASY, yes that means drawn out descriptions of scenes and weapons, tons of wacky races all of whcih take themselves super seriously, etc. And expect realism only when it is convenient.
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Feb 28, 2013 07:07
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Play posted:Actually, Deadhouse Gates is a just as legitimate place to start the series as GoTM is. I did it this way and although I eventually went back to read GoTM it was Deadhouse Gates that got me going. Yeah, last post from me on this front since I just wanted to offer an alternate POV, but I do have to agree with this: If you don't like or appreciate high fantasy, you will not enjoy it. The series basically revels in the fact that fantastical poo poo is happening on every square inch of that world. It's a huge plus for me, as I personally can't stand much "low" fantasy, but I'm not everyone.
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Feb 28, 2013 07:16
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I like Malazan a lot and think Erikson's a great fantasy writer. I think the Dragonball Z argument is pretty silly and mostly hyperbole and if the series did decline towards it's tail end, it's because of the mostly opposite reason of there being too much introspection and philosophizing instead of too much extreme action. Anyway, although they're historical fiction and not fantasy, Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories might appeal to an Abercrombie fan. They're set in England during the time of Alfred the Great and have a lot of Viking badassery.
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Feb 28, 2013 08:48
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Thanks for all the opinions on both sides, everyone. I do enjoy high fantasy so I don't think that aspect will be a problem and I'm still looking forward to trying it.
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Feb 28, 2013 21:21
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It's bizarre to compare Mieville to Erikson. Mieville is on the low level of the pretentious literary sci-fi train, which culminates in stuff like Gene Wolfe, but Mieville writes is a much tighter, easier to digest manifestation of that kind of thing than the rest of the genre. Erikson writes a sprawling fantasy series that is a really epic exercise in cleverly denying information to the reader to maintain the mysteries of it. I think the Malazan series peaked around books 6-8, but it's all worth reading. They manage to be deeply tragic, constantly hilarious, and it has some really awesome characters sprinkled through it. And I don't mean three or four great characters, I mean thirty or forty. They're both great writers, but their writing has nothing in common.
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Feb 28, 2013 22:14
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He wasn't comparing Erikson to Mieville. He was comparing Erikson fans to Mieville fans. He just phrased it kind of funky.Mr.48 posted:Yeah I stay away from it to avoid antagonizing people. Its kind of like China Mieville's work, some people just really love style over substance and theres no way to convince them otherwise.
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Mar 1, 2013 00:12
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BananaNutkins posted:While I agree that Blood Meridian is an amazing novel, I wouldn't recommend that anyone actually read it without warning them about Mccarthy's difficult to swallow style and the extremely unconventional structure. Its a literary novel primarily, and while I did find it extremely entertaining, the average reader is going to toss it into the trash as soon as they get to sentences like: I don't think that McCarthy is that inaccessible. A lot of Blood Meridien is unstructured like the quotation you gave, but other parts are very tight. I especially love the bits where McCarthy starts describing technical matters. However, I would caution against reading Blood Meridien before Red Country, which is what I did. It completely ruined Red Country for me, as I could see bits where Joe was obviously influenced by the book and other McCarthy books, and as a result Red Country came off as a Terry Pratchett like genre novel: amusing but utterly light weight. So read Red Country, and if you enjoyed it, then dive into Cormac McCarthy. It won't hurt and it will probably blow your mind. edited for spelling
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Mar 1, 2013 04:41
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I ended up picking up The Blade Itself even though I was a little wary of it being dark just for the sake of being dark but I'm glad I did. I've burned through the trilogy and BSC in a couple weeks and I'm pretty impressed. You can definitely see the improvement in his writing as the series moves along. I thought the use of flashbacks and stories from another POV that were contrary to the established perception of the characters was an interesting way to do character development. Spoilers for up to BSC:Logen is the most obvious example but Monza ended up being one of my favorite characters for the same reason. It's a lot harder for an author to make a character who is initially unlikable sympathetic than the other way around. The slow reveal that her brother hosed her over (literally and metaphorically) was an interesting way to paint her as a decent person deep down who has been put in some lovely situations. I find flawed good guys like Monza and Jezal are more interesting if they have believable reasons for why they don't always do the right thing. Good being relative in this world I suppose.
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Mar 1, 2013 05:31
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syphon posted:He wasn't comparing Erikson to Mieville. He was comparing Erikson fans to Mieville fans. He just phrased it kind of funky. Yes, thank you, I no make words good 
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Mar 1, 2013 07:14
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Are there any good wikis or similar for Joe Abercrombie books? I find two when i search but they are mostly empty and useless. I'm finishing up Red country today and i find myself wanting a complete refresher on everything so far in the series. Names, places, history, events. All that poo poo. Mostly i would like to get a better grasp of who's working for Bayaz, who works against, and who's just a remnant of the magi's and the old empire. For example i couldn't figure which of the eaters in "Best served cold" you were introduced to in the original trilogy.
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Mar 10, 2013 18:16
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Pessimisten posted:For example i couldn't figure which of the eaters in "Best served cold" you were introduced to in the original trilogy. You weren't, except for Yoru Sulfur. Ishri was mentioned only by name and Shenkt not at all.
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Mar 10, 2013 21:44
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Pessimisten posted:Are there any good wikis or similar for Joe Abercrombie books? I find two when i search but they are mostly empty and useless. I'm finishing up Red country today and i find myself wanting a complete refresher on everything so far in the series. Names, places, history, events. All that poo poo. Mostly i would like to get a better grasp of who's working for Bayaz, who works against, and who's just a remnant of the magi's and the old empire. For example i couldn't figure which of the eaters in "Best served cold" you were introduced to in the original trilogy. For what its worth I did a recap of the backstory on the previous page of this thread.
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Mar 11, 2013 05:21
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Re: Malazan-chat. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to Abercrombie fans. There's crossover, but they're different styles. Abercrombie is about the characters, Erickson is about the setting.
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Mar 11, 2013 22:41
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Mr.48 posted:For what its worth I did a recap of the backstory on the previous page of this thread. It was a good recap. Honestly I can't see needing much more than that. The backstory is really quite simple.
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Mar 13, 2013 02:57
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