PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

Nutsngum: Oct 9, 2004; I don't think it's nice, you laughing.

swamp waste posted:

Neuromancer is "good" sci fi I guess but the characters' relationships and the things they say to each other are like, not so good. I was gonna type up an excerpt but honestly

Hark a vagrant are pro tier webcomics.

It hurts me as the series was a favourite as a kid but the entire Belgariad and its sequel are really pretty drat poorly written.

Pretty much consistent terrible view of women and how they should act (aka, completely irrationally at all times). Mary Sue characters that can defeat any obstacle. Cliched as hell "heroes journey" (to be fair, early 80's fantasy) and a completely blank and boring main hero (garion) with no personality traits whatsover.

I still have a great deal of nostalgic love for the series as I read it even before lord of the rings but it really does not hold up under critical scrutiny at all.

Funnily enough the Elenium was overall a MUCH tighter and better written book series that was completely undone by its awful sequel trilogy.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2015 20:12

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:49

Nutsngum: Oct 9, 2004; I don't think it's nice, you laughing.

Gridlocked posted:

Anything written by Raymond E. Fiest after the Serpent War series (which were still pretty bad, but not awful).

What started as the back story to his DnD groups world turned into a overly long explanation as to why it looks different in his books compared to the game. It also takes what was a fairly basic story of "Evil Ancient Overlords attempt to return, heroes stop them" into all sorts of fuckery with twists that exist not to be interesting but to simply draw the story out. You can tell how bad it gets just looking at the original covers; the first few books have covers that make sense but around Serpent War they start using stock fantasy art that has literately nothing to do with the content of the book.

He spends so much time going into detail explaining how the universe works, how the gods function, how ancient evil gets its powers; and then in the next series he goes and tells you that it's actually all wrong. The last book was a hodge podge of references to the previous works mashed together to show there was in fact some continuity and act as though he knew the ending when he was writing the Serpent War saga back in 93-94, some ten years before hand.

And on the subject of continuity: he only got worse as he went on. At first it was stuff like saying one of his characters never got married, when it was a plot point an earlier book of him getting married to a character who actually got fleshed out a bit. It later divulged into straight up not editing his work. One chapter in a later book had Character A rocking up to a place and doing some things but two chapters later suddenly Character B is there, is implied to have been there the whole time in place of Character A; who is called in to visit and is amazed at the things that he two chapters earlier discovered.

I'm not saying DON'T read Magician, by all means READ Magician; it's a classic. It takes some typical fantasy ideas and gives them little changes that are enjoyable. Read Silverthorn and A Darkness At Sethanon if you're an RPG fan; they basically read as a dramatized adventure log for characters who wouldn't be out of place on a DnD character sheet, you can even pick out who is what class and what role they fill in the typical RPG party setup. Hell go and read the entire Empire saga that he co-authored with Janny Wurts; it is hands down the best saga in the series. Political intrigue that's well written with interesting characters and development.

Magician is surprisingly readable and good considering it was his first book.The next two are still drat fine reads but I do agree that things began to unravel a little in the serpentwar saga. It just became the whole "power creep" idea where everything has to get bigger and badder and the odds even greater.

I do give Feist credit for bringing in new characters and writing old characters out (to death) tough. He did create a rather nice world that you do see varying viewpoints within.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2015 20:18

Nutsngum: Oct 9, 2004; I don't think it's nice, you laughing.

Gridlocked posted:

Spoilers abound below.

Power creep is a thing only if you let it be a thing. After Serpent War he could have done a whole story of the Dragon Lords trying another trick or two to come back, have them come back then be beaten off, Pug Gods and Friends win. Having the Dread as the ultimate bad guy was cool, I liked the Dread as the ultimate bad guy; but loving seriously do you expect us to believe that the thing that hates creation so much it is trying to tear it apart at the seems is capable of just going "heh yeah we are gonna work with these mortals to achieve a minute detail ". Also it basically makes everything that happened in Serpent War and the Conclave Saga a training exercise conducted by the gods to help Pug get ready to fight the dread; which is stupid as gently caress.

Also yeah he killed Arutha and Martin and that which was a pretty big step for a writer. But then it's like "Hey look it's Jim, grandson of James, great-great-grandson of James. He's also named James, looks like both previous James's and has the excat same skill set." It's like the guy in DnD who has has character die, so erases the name on his Character sheet; makes a few edits to skills that are no longer relavent and says "booom Son of My guy"

Blowing up Krondor was kind of cool I must say

# ¿ Jul 6, 2015 15:16

Nutsngum: Oct 9, 2004; I don't think it's nice, you laughing.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I haven't read any Eddings in a while, and his last series was pretty bad even for teenage me, but those books will always have a special place in my heart. It's not good, but at least it's charming.

I absolutely agree the Elenium is better, though.

Speaking of David Eddings,

Eragon straight up plagiarized the Belgariad. The scene where Eragon's mentor teaches him magic uses the same set-up and the same joke as when Belgarath is teaching Garion magic. Mentor guy even reacts with the same line, word for word.

I like how with all of the Star Wars talk, nobody has brought up the X-Wing series. They were my first Star Wars books, and the best ones I read. I never read the Thrawn ones. It's funny, they are both Star Wars and 100% military fiction, but are better than 98% of either.

Oh believe me I agree with you, it still holds a place in my heart as the first fantasy series I really read through properly and enjoyed. Just that whole "adult perspective" brings out some of its less well written and/or intended themes.

The Elenium largely corrected the basic issues that the Belgariad had in having a competent and not boring main character and more realistic side characters. Less awful female characters (by just not having any but one female character who fortunatley wasnt an awful monster like Polgara) and having a more fun and concise goal based adventure.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 17:28

Nutsngum: Oct 9, 2004; I don't think it's nice, you laughing.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

I don't know, I thought the main woman witch in both series were similar. Apparently Eddings' wife co-wrote most of his books, and they were semi-self-inserts. It's been most of a decade since I read any of them, though. And that makes me feel old.

But I agree that the characters in the Elenium were basically like if the side characters in the Belgariad weren't saddled with a couple of coming of age stories.

Nah, Sephrenia in the Elenium is a much more "sagely" and placid character. Polgara was an active dick to her father for no good reason and treated everyone like a child which became grating. The worst character moment for Polgara was getting super angry at Garion for rebelling about having to now be a "wizard" and having all this responsibility. Garion of course being a 14 year old kid who was literally a chapter ago purposely goaded into melting his parent's murderer's face off by Polgara. I think that specifically was the moment I realized she was an awful awful character. Youre right about Edding's wife as far as I know. She did get credit on later books though.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 18:23

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