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Bonesnap posted:It seems like every time you see someone making the "GRRM is a lovely writer" claim it's always the person who hasn't actually read the books. I have read 100% of the books and will admit that GRRM has created a world and story that are strangely compelling despite his truly awful writing.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:40
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BillBear posted:I have the same problem with LOTR and the books. I love the films but I can't bring myself to stomach Tolkien's books. Yeah, those books really do suck though.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:51
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GRRM is a lot like Tolkien in that his world- and character-building skills are miles beyond his prose. Sort of a Kilgore-Trout-lite.
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Oct 9, 2014 18:56
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loquacius posted:GRRM is a lot like Tolkien in that his world- and character-building skills are miles beyond his prose. Sort of a Kilgore-Trout-lite. ASOIAF are way more enjoyable to read than the LotR trilogy or the hobbit, though
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Oct 9, 2014 19:00
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PostNouveau posted:Yeah, those books really do suck though. Yeah LotR suffers from being the granddaddy of high fantasy writing and thus is a source of tons of tropes and clichés (which wasn't an issue at the time of couse), which makes it even more of a chore.
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Oct 9, 2014 21:18
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I'm not a literature guy I like pulp detective novels from the 1940s mostly. ASOIAF was a really enjoyable read for me and was even more fun the second time around. Only crap like his repetition of much and more and little and less was jarring. Otherwise he writes POV chapters with good definition and I like his murky events due to certain POVs having differing information to go on. The fight scenes, both small scale and large battles, are also some of the most immersive I've ever read. All this probably means I should read more but I'd love to know what amazing novels you guys are reading that make GRRM look like a terrible author who is being saved by David and Dan. fake edit: I tried reading Malazan and that was the biggest chore since I read Les Miserables. Couldn't get more than halfway through the first book. Steven Erikson's something queen seemed okay but I got kind of bored of his elves after asoiaf. I should give him another go after I check out Greg Egan.
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Oct 9, 2014 23:59
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Best fantasy books for fans of pulp 1940s detective novels are the Dresden Files.
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Oct 10, 2014 00:33
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Cirofren posted:
 
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Oct 10, 2014 00:34
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Cirofren posted:fake edit: I tried reading Malazan and that was the biggest chore since I read Les Miserables. Couldn't get more than halfway through the first book. Steven Erikson's something queen seemed okay but I got kind of bored of his elves after asoiaf. I should give him another go after I check out Greg Egan. I also tried reading Malazan and quickly lost interest, by the time you start giving a poo poo about a particular storyline the book just cuts off to a completely different part of the world with none of the characters from the previous chapters. Parts of it did seem interesting but it just felt like a horrible way to introduce a story and make readers care.
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Oct 10, 2014 01:16
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I like Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. But I don't agree GRRM is a bad author. He does write some eye - rolling things(for me, mostly phrase repetition) but for the most part is very enjoyable.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:08
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Cirofren posted:
This, more out of curiosity than trying to prove a point. I greatly preferred The Hobbit to LOTR, precisely because of the writing, with the exception of the Scouring of the Shire. I've read part of Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest and some of Sharpe, but the writing is very basic, good stories, not good writing. I read Arthur Conan Doyle's The White Company, which is a good book, but contains just as many instances of medieval phrasings (jape, broke his fast)that everyone here complains about as all of ASOIAF in a single book that's around 500 pages. Sure, I can't think of anything in these series as bad as Fat Pink Mast, but outside of some of Tolkien's stuff I can't think of anything as good as the broken men speech, Reek, Sansa's snow Winterfell and so on. I'm about to pick up Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel as I hear this series is very good. I'd like to see some examples of what constitutes good or bad writing in genre fiction, and any particular instances poor or good writing in ASOIAF outside of the obvious ones. I've just completed my third and fifth complete rewatch of Deadwood and The Wire respectively, I'm up to the nipples on my breastplate in good television writing, I want to know about literature. I also want to know what people think about the Scouring of the Shire as that was my favorite part of LotR and the most thematically similar to ASOIAF in a "war isn't all heroes and songs" sort of way.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:11
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this_is_hard posted:ASOIAF are way more enjoyable to read than the LotR trilogy or the hobbit, though I agree with you about LOTR's, but The Hobbit is a super fast read with great pacing. You can finish that book in a single day if you wanted to. I think it's pretty perfectly written. No 25 pages of Tom Bombadillo nonsense followed up by 5 page long poetry. The Hobbit is short and to the point and it never drags. Total opposite of LOTR and ASOIAF.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:26
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Bonesnap posted:I'd like to see some examples of what constitutes good or bad writing in genre fiction, and any particular instances poor or good writing in ASOIAF outside of the obvious ones. I've just completed my third and fifth complete rewatch of Deadwood and The Wire respectively, I'm up to the nipples on my breastplate in good television writing, I want to know about literature. Smart people debate the extent to which magical realism is just a fancy term for higher-minded or politically-conscious fantasy, but either way you should probably read Beloved, The Name of the Rose, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and most of the other canonical great books of that genre because a lot of them are excellent novels by very good writers whether they count as fantasy or not. When it comes to the narrower band of sword and sorcery stuff, I'm wary of anyone who says GRRM is a comparatively bad writer and you should be too.
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Oct 10, 2014 02:45
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this_is_hard posted:ASOIAF are way more enjoyable to read than the LotR trilogy or the hobbit, though You shut your mouth.
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Oct 10, 2014 04:28
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I could care less about the fat pink mast or much and more or any of the things people dislike about the books. I read to find out what happens to the characters, and I'm interested in the fates of every single one of them. That's a meaningful accomplishment considering just how big the cast is.
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Oct 10, 2014 05:44
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Smart people debate the extent to which magical realism is just a fancy term for higher-minded or politically-conscious fantasy, but either way you should probably read Beloved, The Name of the Rose, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and most of the other canonical great books of that genre because a lot of them are excellent novels by very good writers whether they count as fantasy or not. Nobody who asks for fantasy recs is looking for Eco or GGM, man. Book of the New Sun is a story I would call fantasy that has "literary" prose. First two Gormenghast books are incredibly unique in prose style. Robert E Howard's Conan stories have great prose, on occasion. So does LotR, for that matter. The Worm Ouroboros is basically the stylistic root of sword-and-sorcery and a really good read, but is also in deliberately old-fashioned English (not like Elizabethan, but not much more modern than that either). William Morris wrote some fantasies in similar antiquated style but he didn't have the knack for it imo. Really though, most fantasy novels are all about some made-up idea of Back In The Day so I don't really get when people read it and complain about it being written in old-fashioned style. Like, what are you expecting?
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Oct 10, 2014 05:52
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I for one think the series will be ruined unless I see a fully fledged raging fat pink mast.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:25
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Thank you all for the recommendations. I was being earnest about looking for new authors in addition to being incredulous. I liked Foccult's Pendulum so I'll def. check out Name of the Rose (among other people's suggestions.) I had completely forgot about Umberto Eco these past few years but I've been meaning to read more of him. Now I have a lot on my list. Cheers goons.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:27
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I think Gurm is a pretty decent writer, all things considered. If you want some truly terrible fantasy writing check out the Mistborn series. I stopped about half way through the first one when, after feeling compelled to check online to see if I'd been tricked into reading unlabled YA fiction, I found that loads of other people were asking the same question.
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Oct 10, 2014 06:41
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Yeah Sanderson is pretty loving lame. I read through them anyway but it felt like I was a kid again reading Magic the gathering poo poo paperbacks. The Gurm is the only fantasy author I would recommend to a non-fantasy reader. I've read a lot of lovely fantasy books. I had to force myself to finish Gardens of the Moon and The Darkness that Comes Before and I went no further in either series. I recommend Joe Abercrombie's the First Law trilogy and the 3 follow up books though, definitely worth reading. I still think Ice and Fire is better but first law is complete and it comes to a conclusion. So depending on how/if Ice and Fire concluded, it may be better already. Did I mention that it is complete?
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Oct 10, 2014 07:16
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Belatedly, but, once again, Dorothy Dunnet's The Game of Kings. Scotland in the 1550s may as well as be fantasy to most people (I certainly didn't know about the part of history when I started reading). So have at it: A small country forced to maneuvre between two vastly more powerful neighbours (France and England) while under a regency (those are always fun). Backstabbing, intrigue, spying, duels... it's all there. The sequels visit France under Henri II (courtly games ahoy), Malta under the Knights Hospitaller (she describes the sack of Gozo by Dragut Rais to a fantastic detail), Turkey under Suleiman the Great, and Russia under Peter the Great. Among other places.
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Oct 10, 2014 07:40
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BillBear posted:I have the same problem with LOTR and the books. I love the films but I can't bring myself to stomach Tolkien's books. Tolkien's writing is from another era which can make it harder for contemporary people to read. GRRM's prose are clean, visually clear and very easy to read and understand. His POV approach in the ASoIaF makes things super easy to follow as well. It honestly boggles my mind when people say they have a hard to time reading the books 
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Oct 10, 2014 07:44
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Harton posted:Yeah Sanderson is pretty loving lame. I read through them anyway but it felt like I was a kid again reading Magic the gathering poo poo paperbacks. Counterpoint, I like Sanderson almost as much as GRRM but admittedly his writing scratches an entirely different itch. Sanderson is nice clean fantasy where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. He's still developing as an author and I'd say Stormlight Archives are substantially better than Mistborn, and even the second Stormlight book is substantially better than the first. On an unrelated note it looks like the show has confirmed Robert Strong is Gregor Clegane since Halfthor is back for season 5.
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Oct 10, 2014 09:27
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BlindSite posted:I for one think the series will be ruined unless I see a fully fledged raging fat pink mast. Do the Boltons have any ships?
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Oct 10, 2014 09:45
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Moving on. Here's something for you nerds: Bayesian predictions for The Winds of Winter.
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Oct 10, 2014 10:02
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meristem posted:Moving on. Here's something for you nerds: Bayesian predictions for The Winds of Winter. There was an article in the Torygraph about this a few weeks back, which proudly declared "it seems likely that Arys will die next book"
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Oct 10, 2014 10:16
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Strom Cuzewon posted:There was an article in the Torygraph about this a few weeks back, which proudly declared "it seems likely that Arys will die next book" Yeah, I love how it predicts nonzero chapters for Quentyn. Don't get me wrong, I'm a data scientist, I love data science, but. To his credit, the 'Issues with the model' section is pretty exhaustive. On the other hand, holy poo poo, it seems Littlefinger in King's Landing has been confirmed for Season 5.
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Oct 10, 2014 10:57
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In addition to Littlefinger there was some confirmation about the details of the walk. http://watchersonthewall.com/littlefinger-returns-kings-landing/#more-6846 Also, the umbrella he's holding seems right at home with Littlefinger, despite being completely non-medieval.
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Oct 10, 2014 12:28
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meristem posted:Yeah, I love how it predicts nonzero chapters for Quentyn. Don't get me wrong, I'm a data scientist, I love data science, but. I also love how it predicts that Theon will have no chapters in TWOW despite one of his chapters in the book already being already released in full on the internet
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Oct 10, 2014 14:42
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TOOT BOOT posted:On an unrelated note it looks like the show has confirmed Robert Strong is Gregor Clegane since Halfthor is back for season 5. Was there any doubt?
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Oct 10, 2014 15:55
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The only time I've ever actually noticed a writer's "prose" is Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. That poo poo reads like someone went off their ADHD meds, I couldn't even make it two chapters. Scapegoat posted:Was there any doubt? There's a few people in the thread who're still arguing it isn't Sandor at the monastery despite nine million things happening in the same chapter so yeah there's probably people who doubt it's Gregor too.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:29
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TOOT BOOT posted:Counterpoint, I like Sanderson almost as much as GRRM but admittedly his writing scratches an entirely different itch. Sanderson is nice clean fantasy where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. He's still developing as an author and I'd say Stormlight Archives are substantially better than Mistborn, and even the second Stormlight book is substantially better than the first. Yeah I read both the stormlight books too. I think it's just too clean for me, everyone is a Mary Sue. Both books kinda seemed like he was stalling for 800 pages and then just rapidly wrapping everything up in the last 50.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:40
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Midnight City posted:The only time I've ever actually noticed a writer's "prose" is Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. That poo poo reads like someone went off their ADHD meds, I couldn't even make it two chapters. The most jarring example for me was probably Ready Player One. It's a fun nostalgia-trip of a story, but Ernest Cline's writing is basically a very long sequence of simple declarative sentences and it reads like a list of bullet points. "Wade did thing 1. He did thing 2. Then he did thing 3. He did thing 4, being careful not to accidentally do thing 5 in the process. He did thing 6. Noting that thing 7 still had to be done, he did it. Then he did thing 8. He was all ready to finally do thing 9, but then thing 10 happened! Wade did thing 11."
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Oct 10, 2014 18:25
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Harton posted:The Darkness that Comes Before Bakker's prose massively leaps in quality going into Book 2, and is probably next to Gurm in that he actually has his characters be interesting and fairly complex rather than stock fantasy-cutouts Still keeps the rape though. And even the normal sex would make Gurm shift uncomfortably.
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Oct 10, 2014 18:36
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Quick random filming roundup: Septa Unella has been cast, Gregor spotted in Kingsguard armor (they might just be dumping the Robert Strong mystique and going with "Yep, Qyburn saved the Mountain") and semi-confirmed Kevan sighting. I'm hyped.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:32
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I really hope Kevan gets a semi-major role.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:36
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Bakker's prose massively leaps in quality going into Book 2, and is probably next to Gurm in that he actually has his characters be interesting and fairly complex rather than stock fantasy-cutouts Yeah the constant rape and the black demon semen. Plus after the entire first book I still didn't care about the world or a single character in it. He seemed to introduce new female characters with absolutely no personality who did nothing besides travel with 2 dudes and trade off getting raped by both of them. That was after he introduced the other female character who gets raped by the black semen dude. I doubt I'll ever go back to it and pick up the second book. It was a chore to finish the first one. Harton fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 21:42
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Ballz posted:Quick random filming roundup: Septa Unella has been cast, Gregor spotted in Kingsguard armor (they might just be dumping the Robert Strong mystique and going with "Yep, Qyburn saved the Mountain") and semi-confirmed Kevan sighting. He can just become an unstoppable monster, instead of a headless unstoppable monster. I wonder if Dorne is even going to be asking for his head.
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Oct 10, 2014 21:46
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Probably not, Dorne's already going through tons of changes, of courses.
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Oct 10, 2014 22:06
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Is there any source on Kevan's sighting? I can't see any when I google it. Edit: Nevermind it was posted above, awesome I loved Kevan in the books and I hope he gets some justice from D&D. BillBear fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Oct 10, 2014 |
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Oct 10, 2014 22:45
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