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But for most of human history, the way we've dealt with natural systems hasn't been nearly as rational as Sanderson's books. There's a lot of harnessing of the 'natural' resources, same as a water mill or a quarry, but not as many sacred mountains, or 'clearly maggots are spontaneously generated from meat' type things. Hallucinogenic vapours aren't magic either, but it hasn't stopped cultures from treating them as sacred and unknowable, because they were far beyond understanding at the time. So in a way part of it comes from the fact that anything any author writes is going to be shallow as hell compared to nature. There's far less you need to discover until you have a perfect understanding. But that only applies if Sanderson is unwilling to leave anything undefined to the reader, which I think is kind of the case. Stormlight is really interesting, but it's also early days. Not much is understood yet, but if absolutely everything is neatly uncovered over the course of the series then I'll be disappointed. That's kind of what I felt happened in Mistborn. The mysteries have been mostly wrapped up. I know there's a ton more to come and it'll probably blow my mind, but as mysteries go the nature of the divine and the source/nature of magic feels like a climax. Learning what the undiscovered metals might do and new ways of manipulating them is fascinating but it still kind of pales in comparison. (And don't get me wrong, I loved Mistborn. Stormlight less so, but not because of its magic.)
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Sep 10, 2013 22:50
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Strategic Tea posted:But for most of human history, the way we've dealt with natural systems hasn't been nearly as rational as Sanderson's books. There's a lot of harnessing of the 'natural' resources, same as a water mill or a quarry, but not as many sacred mountains, or 'clearly maggots are spontaneously generated from meat' type things. Hallucinogenic vapours aren't magic either, but it hasn't stopped cultures from treating them as sacred and unknowable, because they were far beyond understanding at the time. So in a way part of it comes from the fact that anything any author writes is going to be shallow as hell compared to nature. There's far less you need to discover until you have a perfect understanding. But that only applies if Sanderson is unwilling to leave anything undefined to the reader, which I think is kind of the case. Misborn is set in a timeperiod which is fairly analogous to our 18-19th century though, not prehistoric times. Advanced enough historically to approach Allomancy as a science and not as an unknowable phenomenon. I really have no problems with some of the usual criticisms against Sanderson (like shallow characters), but the "too clearly defined magic / D&D rulebook" argument always baffles me.
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Sep 11, 2013 02:20
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The Gunslinger posted:Moving on to Mark Lawrence from a few pages ago, I felt really conflicted about The Broken Empire trilogy. He's essentially writing one lovely character the entire time, the books are full of ridiculous grimdark shock content and he meanders all over the place before finally deciding on an arch for the character and story. On the other hand his world building is stellar and feels wasted on the characters and story. I felt the same way. The world was enough to get me to read three mediocre books in the hopes that Lawrence would get over his strange teenage crush on the protagonist long enough to properly explore it. Instead we get the adventures of Fortunate Jorg getting through situation after situation via increasingly convoluted means and more often than not, actual literal Deus Ex Machina. On a less frustrated note, please post your favorite short stories / short story anthologies. e: Also, Sanderson's characters aren't shallow. They're simplistic and archetypal and horribly unfunny unless you're a Mormon Dad, sure, but not shallow. The main problem is that he seems to have about 10 characters in him total. Wangsbig fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 04:53
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NinjaDebugger posted:I mostly wonder why y'all keep talking about Sanderson's magic systems when none of his novels contains one. There are fantastic natural systems that work in ways our universe doesn't, and they're treated by people the same way people treat natural systems in our world. By doing their absolute best to find out the rules that drive it and exploiting them mercilessly for whatever benefit they can get. Yeah, I agree with this post completely, his "magic" is just part of his excellent world building. For somebody who dislikes reading about magical heavy worlds his books are excellent. I do think that in many of his books those natural/magical systems are badly implemented, but this isn't because of the nature of how he writes those system but rather because these books were simply badly written. In other words, it's possible to write a great natural/magical system and write a bok around that (The Emperor's Soul, TWoK in particular, Allow of Law and Legion to a lesser extend) and those shouldn't be discarded because he didn't do it as well in books before that. My experience with Sanderson is basically "yeah, he's terrible, but so is pretty much every other popular fantasy author recommended here". I actually find it quite frustrating how this threads alternates between recommending a very small group of "epic fantasy" authors and bashing/hating all those same authors. I mean, look at the authors mentioned in the OP: Daniel Abraham, Lord Dunsany, Glen Cook, Jo Walton, Mary Gentle, Mark Lawrence, Anthony Ryan, Tolkien, GRRM, Joe Abercrombie, Robert Jordan, Steven Erikson, Brandon Sanderson, R. Scott Bakker, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Jim Butcher and Peter V. Brett. Sometimes others are recommended in this thread, but these are generally the most popular recommendations. The point I'm making is that among the other writers in that list, I'd consider Sanderson to be in the top 4 (worse than GRRM, Abercrombie and Lynch). His world building is in my opinion only second to Tolkien (who I don't like because of pacing issues and lack of mystery) and while his characters aren't as interesting as those in GRRM's books, Lies of Locke Lamora, or Abercrombie's books they're still pretty good compaired to those written by the other authors in that list. Compaired with writers outside his genre Sanderson is pretty bad, but every once in a while I enjoy these kind of books and I've read so many recommended books from this thread that turned out to be horrible despite that their authors don't get anywhere as much hatred as Sanderson does (acacia, the long price quartet, the steel remains, the painted man, the darkness that comes before, colours in the steel, the wise man's fear, the eye of the world, etc) so I'll still read Sanderson his books when they come out. That said, many better authors have been mentioned as well and there have been many books I've enjoyed more than Sanderson's, but most of these weren't in the same genre (Catherynne M Valente, Pratchett, Bridge of Birds, some others) and those that were I've read every book of that author already anyway (Lynch, GRRM, Abercrombie). Obviously there are also many writers/books recommended in here I haven't read yet and without a doubt some will turn out to be better than Sanderson his books are, so recommend me these writers/books. Feel free to disagree. De gustibus non est disputandum. Tldr; recommend better writers please. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 08:31
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NinjaDebugger posted:I mostly wonder why y'all keep talking about Sanderson's magic systems when none of his novels contains one. There are fantastic natural systems that work in ways our universe doesn't, and they're treated by people the same way people treat natural systems in our world. I can listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson and get a sense of wonder and awe for the 'natural systems' of our world. Sanderson imbues his natural systems with all the wonder of a D&D Magic Manual.
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Sep 11, 2013 12:34
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I recommend Guy Gavriel Kay for fantasy that's light on magic and is well written. You can start with Tigana or Lions of Al-Rassan. Don't start with the Fionavar trilogy, they are his first novels and it shows. It's kind of like historical fiction in that his novels draw heavily from certain historical periods and regions (Lions of Al-Rassan, for instance, is Spain during the Reconquista) but then mix it up a fair bit.
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Sep 11, 2013 12:48
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Wangsbig posted:I felt the same way. The world was enough to get me to read three mediocre books in the hopes that Lawrence would get over his strange teenage crush on the protagonist long enough to properly explore it. Instead we get the adventures of Fortunate Jorg getting through situation after situation via increasingly convoluted means and more often than not, actual literal Deus Ex Machina. The last book in the Broken Empire Series was pretty bad. First one was good, and had a good momentum, second one was good based on the convoluted flashbacks. Also Jorg stopped being shocking in the second book, cause you were expecting it. It was easy to guess the identity of the Dead King half way in the book, and that took away a lot of the mystery. When it comes to evil protagonists, I hold the The left hand of God by Hoffman as a better series, even though it has it's own problems.
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Sep 11, 2013 13:59
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Walh Hara posted:
If I understand your post, you're looking for fantasy writers that are more prose oriented, and less pulpy. Try these: John Crowley's Little, big is a masterpiece. I just found his early 70s fantasy novels used online and hope they are also good. Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber or The Passion of New Eve (DO NOT READ wikipedia on TPONE until after--I just looked at it and it is terrible) Felix Gilman's The Half Made World and The Rise of Ransom City. The prose in these is not as good as the first two I recommended, but they are idea heavy books and the prose is better than your typical fantasy writer. None of these are swords and sorcery though, fyi. If you're willing to try sci-fi try Stansilaw Lem's Solaris or Urusula Leguin's The Dispossessed
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Sep 11, 2013 14:55
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NinjaDebugger posted:I mostly wonder why y'all keep talking about Sanderson's magic systems when none of his novels contains one. There are fantastic natural systems that work in ways our universe doesn't, and they're treated by people the same way people treat natural systems in our world. By doing their absolute best to find out the rules that drive it and exploiting them mercilessly for whatever benefit they can get. 'The Robert L. Forward of fantasy fiction.'
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Sep 11, 2013 15:25
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Walh Hara posted:Compaired with writers outside his genre Sanderson is pretty bad, but every once in a while I enjoy these kind of books and I've read so many recommended books from this thread that turned out to be horrible despite that their authors don't get anywhere as much hatred as Sanderson does (acacia, the long price quartet, the steel remains, the painted man, the darkness that comes before, colours in the steel, the wise man's fear, the eye of the world, etc) so I'll still read Sanderson his books when they come out. Really, I think Sanderson's problem is that he does a workmanlike job at everything without excelling at anything. A jack of all trades while a master of none. He might not have all the flaws of some of the other mentioned authors, but he doesn't have any of their strengths, either. He doesn't have Rothfuss' beautiful prose, Abercrombie's storytelling, Erikson's worldbuilding and characterizations. Sure, he doesn't really have any of their flaws either, but he's lacking those thing that make the other authors rise above the crowd, whatever gives them that spark of brilliance. I started The Name of the Wind one evening and the next thing I knew the sun was rising, but I put the Way of Kings down and I went to bed. Erikson had Coltaine, Trull Sengar, Fiddler, Karsa, Bottle, Anomander Rake, Icarium and Mappo and Beak. I honestly can't remember the name of any of the characters in a Sanderson book aside from Dalinor. He's a good author, but there's nothing to make him standout, imo.
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Sep 11, 2013 15:47
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Cardiac posted:I would say The Scar by Mieville. It's set in the same world as Perdido Street Station, but completely stand-alone.
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Sep 11, 2013 17:08
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I highly recommend Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series as the best fantasy series ever written. Scott Lynch agrees with me.
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Sep 11, 2013 17:49
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quote:I recommend Guy Gavriel Kay for fantasy that's light on magic and is well written. You can start with Tigana or Lions of Al-Rassan. Don't start with the Fionavar trilogy, they are his first novels and it shows. Oh, I actually read Lions of Al-Rassan already. Very well written and I liked the setting, but I didn't find the story that compelling. However, I admit part of the problem might have been that I knew the story of EL Cid and as such found the story too predictable, so I'll certainly check out his other books anyway. Pretty sure Fionavar is on my list of "books I started but never finished". quote:If I understand your post, you're looking for fantasy writers that are more prose oriented, and less pulpy. Well, I often read fantasy as way to alternate with prose-dense, heavy books so I don't mind it that much if a fantasy book is pulpy and doesn't have that well written prose as long as the story is good. That said, good prose and good story telling appears to me to be highly correlated. Thanks for the suggestions. I admit The Half Made World and The Dispossessed are both on my list of "books I started but somehow never ended up finishing", although that doesn't necessarily mean I found them bad. quote:Really, I think Sanderson's problem is that he does a workmanlike job at everything without excelling at anything. A jack of all trades while a master of none. I contemplated making the joke answer that Sanderson stands out in that he writes a lot faster than any other author on the list. But that aside, I see what you're coming from although I honestly think his world building stands out compaired to other writes in the same genre. In fact, I actually like his world building generally more than Erikson's (I read the first 3 books of Malazan, gave up at the 4th due to various issues I had with it) if you include the magical systems, pantheons, etc in the world building aspect. Before I'm misinterpretated, I don't think Sanderson is the best writer ever. At all, not even within his subgenre however you define that. He's certainly not the best at world building either, the world building in bas-lag is a lot more fascinating for example. There are some books of him I couldn't finish on my first try and I can easily point out badly written things in every single book of him. The only reason I'm making this much fuss about it is because for some odd reason every single time his name is mentioned in here (no matter what context, even when no opinion is asked) there are instantly a bunch of people posting about how bad he is. I wouldn't mind that so much if they could convince me there are enough better writers in the same genre out there that merit the reading time more, but as it is I don't think that's the case. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 19:02
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BananaNutkins posted:I highly recommend Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series as the best fantasy series ever written. Scott Lynch agrees with me. Jo Walton has a theory that the extra years are because Padeen is a sidhe and when he's on ship they voyage out of time.
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Sep 11, 2013 19:17
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Walh Hara posted:Before I'm misinterpretated, I don't think Sanderson is the best writer ever. At all, not even within his subgenre however you define that. He's certainly not the best at world building either, the world building in bas-lag is a lot more fascinating for example. There are some books of him I couldn't finish on my first try and I can easily point out badly written things in every single book of him. The only reason I'm making this much fuss about it is because for some odd reason every single time his name is mentioned in here (no matter what context, even when no opinion is asked) there are instantly a bunch of people posting about how bad he is. I wouldn't that so much if they could convince me there are enough better writers in the same genre out there that merit the reading time more, but as it is I don't think that's the case. It's because Sanderson sells a bunch of books and has basically become the poster child for big fat fantasy. He also has slightly lovely views about gay people, though at least he doesn't seem to act on them. There are loads and loads of fantasy writers more worth the reading time, though specifically in the epic fantasy subgenre I'm not as sure.
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Sep 11, 2013 19:19
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Walh Hara posted:The only reason I'm making this much fuss about it is because for some odd reason every single time his name is mentioned in here (no matter what context, even when no opinion is asked) there are instantly a bunch of people posting about how bad he is. I wouldn't mind that so much if they could convince me there are enough better writers in the same genre out there that merit the reading time more, but as it is I don't think that's the case. Err what? There's a thread for the author if you want to read mostly positive stuff from fans. People have their own opinions just like you. I don't think anyone is trying to convince others not to read or enjoy his stuff, they are just offering their own thoughts. Sure one person was dismissive but I think everyone else was pretty reasonable. How was Dust by Hugh Howey? I just finished that Broken Empire series and discovered I have nothing new on my Kindle. I stopped reading his stuff after the whole "suck it bitch" thing but I hear he offered a decent apology and hasn't done anything since so I'm curious if Dust gives any decent closure for the series. I recall being pretty disappointed with the second one so maybe I should just forget it though. The Gunslinger fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 21:15
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Khizan posted:Really, I think Sanderson's problem is that he does a workmanlike job at everything without excelling at anything. A jack of all trades while a master of none. What makes him stand out is his general competence at everything. As you said he might be slightly less good at any particular area, but the overall quality of his work is of a higher level and is much more consistent than some of the other authors, while still keeping his stories readable. Malazan is a prime example of this - I know a LOT of people who couldn't get through those books because of Erikson's writing style but are more than happy to read some Sanderson.
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Sep 11, 2013 22:10
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Khizan posted:Really, I think Sanderson's problem is that he does a workmanlike job at everything without excelling at anything. A jack of all trades while a master of none. What I really like is a different manifestation of that same rational world-building, the way the reader's understanding of a complex world slowly coalesces over the course of the work. When I finished the first Mistborn book, suddenly 15 different things that hadn't quite made sense clicked into focus. And when I finished the whole trilogy, a ton more things suddenly made sense, including many that I hadn't even realized weren't making sense before thanks to authorial sleight of hand. I enjoyed the mythology side of the show Lost while it was airing, but it didn't end up amounting to much. There's no consistent, grand unified theory to Lost; they were making it up as they went along. Sanderson doesn't make anything up as he goes along, there really is a consistent grand unified theory, and unlike say Gene Wolfe you actually can fully understand how it all fits together after a single read. I really, really love that and no one else does this even remotely as well as he does.
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Sep 11, 2013 23:25
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I don't mean to make a judgment either way by saying this, but one thing that really helped Sanderson's popularity was finishing a long running book series that was quite popular. At the very least it made a lot of people aware of his name.
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Sep 11, 2013 23:38
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The Gunslinger posted:How was Dust by Hugh Howey? I just finished that Broken Empire series and discovered I have nothing new on my Kindle. I stopped reading his stuff after the whole "suck it bitch" thing but I hear he offered a decent apology and hasn't done anything since so I'm curious if Dust gives any decent closure for the series. I recall being pretty disappointed with the second one so maybe I should just forget it though. I thought it was a disappointing ending. Technically there's a resolution, but it reads like there's still another book to come. The problem is, there isn't. I wouldn't be surprised if he left it that way as an escape hatch so he could come back to the series in the future. He's already done the prequel thing, so the present/future had to be left open.
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Sep 12, 2013 00:05
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The Gunslinger posted:ow was Dust by Hugh Howey? I just finished that Broken Empire series and discovered I have nothing new on my Kindle. I stopped reading his stuff after the whole "suck it bitch" thing but I hear he offered a decent apology and hasn't done anything since so I'm curious if Dust gives any decent closure for the series. I recall being pretty disappointed with the second one so maybe I should just forget it though. I thought the entire series was good. For me, it was much slower moving than what I prefer to read (Abercrombie, Asher, Morgan, Gary Gibson) but somehow I enjoyed the entire series. I felt there was quite enough of a conclusion. Unless he decides to write the post-silo earth results...but not very many books can take you all the way to the end of time. Everyone's tastes are different. I really see that here where books I love were hated and vice-versa.
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Sep 12, 2013 02:53
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Walh Hara posted:The only reason I'm making this much fuss about it is because for some odd reason every single time his name is mentioned in here (no matter what context, even when no opinion is asked) there are instantly a bunch of people posting about how bad he is. You will get this for basically every somewhat known SF author in this thread every few dozen pages. I've read pages of posts making GBS threads on about every single author I like over the years. That's how it is. There are always people disliking a writer. I don't like a lot more writers than I like, and there are even more whose writing simply didn't engage me, even if it was objectively decent. And of those I like or even love many have quite a few flaws in their writing or personality. I guess it is the same for most people, so you will find a lot of people willing to share their dislike for any author at any given moment. Not to say "deal with it", but, well, deal with it. SF is a genre, where often a lot of writing isn't that great objectively ("workmanlike" as it was used a couple of times here), but you tolerate it because of the ideas, the theme, the characters, the setting, the worldbuilding, the story, the humor, the love the writer pours into his/her work etc, even if the writing itself is flawed. But of course it means said writer is more easily criticized and disliked than authors who write more major "L" literature, which might have near flawless prose but is boring. Very, very few writers manage flawless prose with engaging characters, great plot and interesting setting paired with good sales. Personally I like Sanderson's books a lot and I'm really happy he won a Hugo for The Emperor's Soul, which I really, really loved. Which means I mostly skimmed the last few pages of dislike for him. Srice posted:I don't mean to make a judgment either way by saying this, but one thing that really helped Sanderson's popularity was finishing a long running book series that was quite popular. At the very least it made a lot of people aware of his name. Mistborn was already a big bestseller with many positive reviews before he took over WoT (he got the gig of WoT because Harriet McDougal liked Mistborn), he was nominated for several awards (the Campbell twice for example) even before that. WoT surely helped him a lot, but it's not exactly like he was a nobody before. Decius fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 06:47
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Lex Talionis posted:I don't think much of Sanderson's prose or characters. "Workmanlike" is honestly a little generous there. But there's a reason he's popular and it's his mastery, yes mastery, of rational world-building. For a lot people, this appeals because of the magic systems. It's basically science fiction; he's playing the exact same games with the rules of his magic that Isaac Asimov played in the original robot stories. Personally I find that neat but not really a compelling reason to read him but lots of people really like that. This is honestly a really good way of describing why I like Sanderson - I just hadn't put it into words in such a way - he sets up some simple premises with the mechanics of his fantasy world, and all the plot twists and big reveals just click into place perfectly and suddenly everything makes sense, especially a lot of small niggling bits you hadn't realized were significant until now. Then, if you read it again you realize how everything was really leading inevitably up to that conclusion and how did you not see it before.
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Sep 12, 2013 10:36
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Wolpertinger posted:This is honestly a really good way of describing why I like Sanderson - I just hadn't put it into words in such a way - he sets up some simple premises with the mechanics of his fantasy world, and all the plot twists and big reveals just click into place perfectly and suddenly everything makes sense, especially a lot of small niggling bits you hadn't realized were significant until now. Then, if you read it again you realize how everything was really leading inevitably up to that conclusion and how did you not see it before. This is known as the "Sanderson Avalanche".
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Sep 12, 2013 10:42
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Decius posted:SF is a genre, where often a lot of writing isn't that great objectively ("workmanlike" as it was used a couple of times here), but you tolerate it because of the ideas, the theme, the characters, the setting, the worldbuilding, the story, the humor, the love the writer pours into his/her work etc, even if the writing itself is flawed. You don't have to do this! Find the authors who can write good SF and good capital-L literature. They do exist. You don't need to settle for one or the other. Decius posted:But of course it means said writer is more easily criticized and disliked than authors who write more major "L" literature, which might have near flawless prose but is boring. This is a false dichotomy. A good Real Literature writer will write an engaging story just as well as anyone working in genre. The subjectivity thing keeps coming up and again I want to raise the uncomfortable position that not all tastes are equal. Readers develop and become more talented just like writers do. You can see this in the way tastes change over time - there are loads and loads of readers who once thought R. A. Salvatore and Tim Zahn were probably the greatest human artists (myself, for example!) but who moved on to bigger and more complex things as they grew up. Never, to my knowledge, do you see the opposite - nobody goes from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to R. A. Salvatore. Yes, everybody has different tastes, and yeah, taste is subjective. But opinions on literature can be substantiated, which is part of why we have this thread. We're not operating in a vacuum of isolated preferences in which the only possible discourse available to us is 'some people like it, some people don't.' When the thread shits on a writer for pages and pages there are often a lot of really good points made (and, sometimes, not). I've been on both sides of that process, and my feeling is that it's generally pretty good at drawing out real flaws. The Emperor's Soul was pretty good though. e: This really is the same discussion that constantly flares up in the TG board games thread. 
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Sep 12, 2013 14:20
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So are you saying Salvatore is Monopoly, Sanderson is Power Grid and Pynchon is chess?
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Sep 12, 2013 14:44
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General Battuta posted:You don't have to do this! Find the authors who can write good SF and good capital-L literature. They do exist. You don't need to settle for one or the other. I think it's a mistake to talk about "Real Literature" in that sense.For one thing, even when one author is objectively "better" or "more Literary" that doesn't mean I stop enjoying all "lesser" authors. I didn't stop liking the first few of Robert Asprin's Myth books the minute I read my first Terry Pratchett novel. They both write comic fantasy, and Pratchett is, well, let's face it, a better writer, but the first few Myth books are still plenty charming and I still re-read them every so often. Past that, different writers are usually trying different things with their talents -- writing a truly good space opera is harder than you might think. It's perfectly possible for the same reader to enjoy Borges for what Borges can do and also enjoy, say, Glen Cook's Black Company series for what it is. One of my favorite writers is Roger Zelazny precisely because each one of his books is something completely different -- sometimes he's writing thematically complex experimental works (say, Creatures of Light and Darkness, where one chapter is a play, one chapter is a lyrical poem, one is an epic poem, etc.) and sometimes he's writing comic pastiche fiction like A Night in the Lonesome October, sometimes he's writing pure pulp pageturners (Amber series), etc. Hell even in his probably greatest work, the Hugo-winning Lord of Light, there's like a five-page sequence that's almost entirely setup for one gloriously horrible pun. I'll admit there's a certain amount of truth to what you say but I think the field of authors people truly "grow out of" is comparatively small -- mostly the guys writing licensed star wars / AD&D fiction and Piers Anthony. Once you're over a certain minimum threshold, it's all "good," it's just what you're in the mood for. Some days I want to read Borges, some days I want to read about spaceships. edit: "small" isn't the right word. Lord knows there are enough authors like Dan Brown etc. who are just objectively bad. If a given author is technically solid though I'll probably enjoy his work whether he's writing pulp or High Literature. Enjoying Faulkner doesn't mean I have to stop enjoying Robert E. Howard. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 14:47
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I think you're absolutely right - it's a case of expanding palate - but part of that should include the ability to criticize and discuss. As a personal example, I was the world's biggest Battlestar Galactica fan while the show aired; now, having watched The Wire and a bunch of other TV, I can look at BSG from a lot of angles I didn't have before. And yeah, it's worth reinforcing that not all capital-L Literature is inherently better. Jeffrey Eugenides is a great gateway to 'realistic fiction' (whatever that means), but Middlesex is a massively better book than The Virgin Suicides. And I'd put any of Connie Willis's books up there as great literature about the human condition.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:05
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General Battuta posted:I'd put any of Connie Willis's books up there as great literature about the human condition. I've never been able to get more than a page or two into To Say Nothing of the Dog because every time I start reading it I'm like "Ok, I see what you're doing here, but I've read Three Men in a Boat, and this is no Three Men in a Boat." And then I go read Three Men in a Boat. I probably need to give it yet another go.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:09
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Haha, good example - I think there's probably a lot of criticism to be made of her work, and I really shouldn't have said 'any of her books' when I've only read Blackout/All Clear, Doomsday Book, and Passage. She has an interesting project as a writer, trying to make something out of narrative obstructionism, but I think that same tendency can make her work hard to approach - it all feels so meandering and banal before it explodes.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:11
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What people are saying about Redshirts is roughly what I feel about Halting State. I was surprised by how underwhelming I found it. It's a novel of ideas, and has lots of the latter but not much of the former. It's readable and funny and the three main characters are pleasant, but they're also shallow and their voices (including the narrator's/narrators') were too similar. The plot begins nicely but fades towards the end with the international aspect being too big for the main characters to deal with and ultimately sorted out offscreen because there's a backup plan for that, so it has to revert to an earlier and now-underwhelming plot line. Unfortunately the ideas aren't all that interesting, and they're often underdeveloped. The AR glasses are supposed to be key plot points but they're not used all that much, either affecting the plot (and Spooks was just silly) or showing characters using them interestingly, not even little things like cops leaving notes in CopSpace. ("The door had a CopSpace sign reading 'Back at 3 o'clock', so Sue went to Forensics instead.") As for the predictive aspects, they're sometimes embarrassingly old-fashioned, e.g. with the villains being Chinese or the "AR showing real people as orcs" thing - I remember seeing this in one of the Night's Dawn books years before... There's another interesting way they're old-fashioned: the hero's an engineer. There's quite a bit of talk about computers changing the world's nervous system and how they're the real masters of the world, but a lot more about how they're slobby losers. It's like Cryptonomicon without the satirical angle. The subplot involving Jack's nieces is a nice twist on Ghost in the Shell, but doesn't make sense because Jack knows all along they're not real people, so why was he acting as if they were?. Ultimately there seemed like a lot of misplaced effort and keeping the international-politics aspects out, and I think focusing more on the smaller mystery plotlines and Sue (who by the end is a mostly-passive observer, running round after other cops) would have made a stronger book. E: H'm, this other conversation came up while I was wondering whether to post this. Just to chime in, I think Hieronymus Alloy's right; it's not a "ladder" so much as "boxes to check". If you want to read a book with X and Y, you'll pick a book for being good at X and Y, never mind (for now) that it's crap at Z. Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 16:05
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Stross is a weird author. Sometimes his novels are brilliant thrill rides that fit together like clockwork and sometimes he wastes 100 pages on dumb Iphone jokes and LOOK AT HOW NERDY I AM cockwaving. When he's good he's really really good but when he's bad he's horrid.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Stross is a weird author. Sometimes his novels are brilliant thrill rides that fit together like clockwork and sometimes he wastes 100 pages on dumb Iphone jokes and LOOK AT HOW NERDY I AM cockwaving. When he's good he's really really good but when he's bad he's horrid.
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Sep 12, 2013 16:24
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I really like parts of the Laundry Files series. Like any given Laundry novel or short story it's a coinflip whether or not I think it's *amazing* or "ehhhhh".
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Sep 12, 2013 16:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Stross is a weird author. Sometimes his novels are brilliant thrill rides that fit together like clockwork and sometimes he wastes 100 pages on dumb Iphone jokes and LOOK AT HOW NERDY I AM cockwaving. When he's good he's really really good but when he's bad he's horrid. Even within the same universe, he can do this. I find Accelerando unreadable, but I loved Glasshouse. Iron Sunrise is a much better book than Singularity Sky (though re-reading SS after IS improved it a bit). Pretty much the only constant with Stross is that practically everyone likes "A Colder War".
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Sep 12, 2013 16:50
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House Louse posted:What people are saying about Redshirts is roughly what I feel about Halting State. I was surprised by how underwhelming I found it. It's a novel of ideas, and has lots of the latter but not much of the former. It's readable and funny and the three main characters are pleasant, but they're also shallow and their voices (including the narrator's/narrators') were too similar. I like most of Stross' stuff (especially Laundry), but Halting State took me years to finish, despite being a rather short book. The second person narration was so very off-putting to me and all the cooperate culture stuff early on is something I hate. I hate business meetings, and business suits and cooperate guidelines and all this poo poo. But once I got into the book recently I found it quite good. Not brilliant, but fun. On the other hand I really enjoyed Saturn's Children, which wasn't well received by most I think and Neptune's Brood even more.
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Sep 12, 2013 17:04
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When you're as prolific (two books a year, often) and deliberately varied as Stross being uneven is par for the course.Hieronymous Alloy posted:Stross is a weird author. Sometimes his novels are brilliant thrill rides that fit together like clockwork and sometimes he wastes 100 pages on dumb Iphone jokes and LOOK AT HOW NERDY I AM cockwaving. When he's good he's really really good but when he's bad he's horrid. Some of the geek stuff is writing what he knows and likes, but he implies in the back matter of my copy of HS that he sees geeks as the mainstream sf audience.
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Sep 12, 2013 17:07
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I've never been able to get more than a page or two into To Say Nothing of the Dog because every time I start reading it I'm like "Ok, I see what you're doing here, but I've read Three Men in a Boat, and this is no Three Men in a Boat." And then I go read Three Men in a Boat. I probably need to give it yet another go. I had read Three Men in a Boat shortly before To Say Nothing of the Dog, and she is not attempting to write another Three Men in a Boat. It's an homage, if anything, and well done, at least in my opinion. If that's not your style, that's great, but I think you're missing out.
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Sep 12, 2013 17:26
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Zola posted:I had read Three Men in a Boat shortly before To Say Nothing of the Dog, and she is not attempting to write another Three Men in a Boat. It's an homage, if anything, and well done, at least in my opinion. If that's not your style, that's great, but I think you're missing out. Yeah, intellectually I realize this, I just haven't been able to get past my gut reaction yet. I think it might be as much me wanting another Three Men in a Boat as it is anything else. (Three Men on the Bummel just isn't enough!)
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Sep 12, 2013 18:27
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Connie Willis is a great writer, and I actually avoided her for years because of possibly the dumbest reason I've ever heard of for avoiding an author. I took 2 physics courses from her husband in college, and he rarely paid attention to making sure answers had the proper number of sig figs, and that is one of my big pet peeves. Every time I saw one of her books on the shelf, no matter how much it was recommended, no matter how good the reviews were, no matter what awards it won, I would never buy it because I thought about sig figs. Eventually, someone gave me Doomsday Book as a gift and I needed something to read for a flight so I tossed it in my bag and read it and thought it was a fun concept and well done. She's a pretty great writer and one of the authors I recommend to people who have opinions about what the genre is despite not having given it a fair shot.
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Sep 12, 2013 20:01
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