Books Fantasy Book Discussion

[DarthOne]

Ok, was never thet interested in HP, kinds hate the whole franchise, really.

Same. Enjoyed it growing up, but not so much these days.

 

[Agent23]

Same. Enjoyed it growing up, but not so much these days.

I was into technothrillers and some military Science fiction arthr time when the other brats were reading it.

It looked like crap to me.

Then the fucking pothead worshipers decided to brigade the Hugos and pissed me off massively.

One of the original trilogy ASoIaF books was nominated, I imagine that in an alternate reality the Fat Sailboat Larper gets it, is happy, and doesn't go senile, doesn't write himself into a hole and produces a quality sequel.

And then I learned that most of the fan base is made up of Soyboy SJWs and feminazis, and that the writer is a leftoid bitch.

 

[Agent23]

His short sci-fi stories were pretty good. When he wrote a massive novel series though, you can start to see the cracks beginning to show as time went on per novel.

I have read them, I believe I have mentioned some, like Tuf.

Martin has lots of problems.

He can't end shit and he writes himself into holes and digs himself into holes.

He is an even bigger leftoid ass and attention whore than what's her name that wrote Pothead.

 

[Jormungandr]

I have read them, I believe I have mentioned some, like Tuf.

Martin has lots of problems.

He can't end shit and he writes himself into holes and digs himself into holes.

He is an even bigger leftoid ass and attention whore than what's her name that wrote Pothead.

I think the negative reception to Game of Thrones' ending scared him a bit, since his ending was probably something along those lines. It's why he hasn't released the next book/continued things actively -- he has no idea what to write as an ending, since the concept he was going to use was burned badly with the last season.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

In Martin’s case he has proved the utter triumph of the “architect” over the “gardener.” He didn’t plan things out well enough, and he brought in a ton of new plot threads in books four and five. Now he has so many characters, arcs, and plots to tie up, he hasn’t got a clue what to do.

TL;DR, His story got away from him. This is what happens when you don’t plan.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'm going to, and I honestly am having trouble believing it, come to Martin's defense a bit here. I don't think it's just him, the entire genre of "Fifteen-book two-million word epics" is a bad one. Trilogies work. Tredecologies are just out of luck. Pretty much every one of them has no satisfying ending. The number of plot threads and new characters multiplies over time and becomes unworkable to where entire books pass without even looking at the ostensible "main characters" because there's so many side characters and b plots to cover. Then the author inevitably gets bored writing the same thing year after year, the fans lash out because they'd like to see some resolution. and the author either drops it or starts doing something new and interesting while promising they'll get back to the first epic any day now. Or, well, the author dies of old age without ever getting there.

But you can count the number of mega-epics that actually had a solid story arc and satisfying conclusion on the fingers of your left hand.. even if your name is James Hook. Nearly all of them start out strong and then die with a whimper.

That said this is still a bit on Martin for decided to use the cursed format...

 

[Lord Sovereign]

But you can count the number of mega-epics that actually had a solid story arc and satisfying conclusion on the fingers of your left hand.. even if your name is James Hook. Nearly all of them start out strong and then die with a whimper.

You have an exception to that in Wheel of Time, but in support of your point that’s after poor Robert Jordan shook off his mortal coil (after getting a smidgen lost with his books) and Brandon Sanderson had to finish it.

 

[Bear Ribs]

You have an exception to that in Wheel of Time, but in support of your point that’s after poor Robert Jordan shook off his mortal coil (after getting a smidgen lost with his books) and Brandon Sanderson had to finish it.

Kinda, again "The author died trying to finish" doesn't really sell it as a good idea to me. And honestly, Wheel of Time bogged down quite a bit after the fourth book, I recall one of the later volumes was literally just a recap of the entire series so far, barely any wordcount was devoted to new developments.

I also kinda blame Wheel of Time for starting the trend of multi-volume mega-epics in the first place.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Kinda, again "The author died trying to finish" doesn't really sell it as a good idea to me. And honestly, Wheel of Time bogged down quite a bit after the fourth book, I recall one of the later volumes was literally just a recap of the entire series so far, barely any wordcount was devoted to new developments.

I also kinda blame Wheel of Time for starting the trend of multi-volume mega-epics in the first place.

I find Brandon Sanderson himself does quite well in this regard. He sticks to the trilogy format, but multiple trilogies can exist in the same world and be connected together.

Speaking of which, in terms of trilogies, the first three game of thrones books are actually quite good when seen in that light.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I think beyond-trilogy book series can work, but a trilogy of novels is about as far as you can push a single coherent narrative arc.

C.S. Lewis' Narnia books are a pretty solid example; there's seven books, but they aren't a single narrative arc -- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader form an arc, The Silver Chair is a loosely connected side story, The Horse and His Boy is a completely standalone side story, The Magician's Nephew is a "beginning of the world" prequel, and The Last Battle is an end story that happens multiple generations after all the others.

 

[Agent23]

In Martin’s case he has proved the utter triumph of the “architect” over the “gardener.” He didn’t plan things out well enough, and he brought in a ton of new plot threads in books four and five. Now he has so many characters, arcs, and plots to tie up, he hasn’t got a clue what to do.

TL;DR, His story got away from him. This is what happens when you don’t plan.

I find Brandon Sanderson himself does quite well in this regard. He sticks to the trilogy format, but multiple trilogies can exist in the same world and be connected together.

Speaking of which, in terms of trilogies, the first three game of thrones books are actually quite good when seen in that light.

Kinda, again "The author died trying to finish" doesn't really sell it as a good idea to me. And honestly, Wheel of Time bogged down quite a bit after the fourth book, I recall one of the later volumes was literally just a recap of the entire series so far, barely any wordcount was devoted to new developments.

I also kinda blame Wheel of Time for starting the trend of multi-volume mega-epics in the first place.

Yeah, maybe we need a "General Fantasy Literature whining/discussion" thread or something?!!?

Then again, we mostly over-focus on politics and other whining most of the time...

Since all of this stuff will eventually get pushed over there I will give my 2 cents on the subject.


1. Fatso wrote himself into a hole, everyone and their mother knows that.

2. I dropped WOT at book 3, it was nice, but not something I've felt the urge to resume.


3. Sanderson is not an Architect in the A v G setup, he is a metal stamping machine working on top of a factory conveyor.


His stuff is thoroughly unmemorable, aside for his first few books and even there things became massively predictable and bland after a while.


Cenceptually Mistborn had good ideas, overall though, his stuff is not great, not terrible, either.

At least GRRM managed to do his bit to give us some darker and more down to earth fantasy again, with the explosion in readership of that type of stuff partially attributable to him.

 

[Navarro]

Kinda, again "The author died trying to finish" doesn't really sell it as a good idea to me. And honestly, Wheel of Time bogged down quite a bit after the fourth book, I recall one of the later volumes was literally just a recap of the entire series so far, barely any wordcount was devoted to new developments.

No, it was literally a recap of the last chapter of the previous book.

 

[Prince Ire]

It's hilarious to me that J.K. Rowling took less time to publish all seven Harry Potter books than it's taken GRRM to write Winds of Winter.

 

[Megadeath]

I'm still more mad at Patrick Rothfuss.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I'm still more mad at Patrick Rothfuss.

Oh you poor, poor, bastard.

Him and Martin are classic examples of what happens when you don't have a plan. Rowling meanwhile, for all her faults as a writer, at least had a fuzzy outline she followed.

 

[Agent23]

Rowling meanwhile, for all her faults as a writer, at least had a fuzzy outline she followed.

For a shitty, shallow, generic, leftoid garbage filled children's book!

You are comparing an apple to Apple's entire ecosystem with all their tech and services.

 

[Megadeath]

Oh you poor, poor, bastard.

Him and Martin are classic examples of what happens when you don't have a plan. Rowling meanwhile, for all her faults as a writer, at least had a fuzzy outline she followed.

I'm half convinced someone's enacted that Stephen King plot and got him locked away in a room writing for them personally. Brent Weeks is another good example of a writer having a plan and following through on it, though I believe his second series ballooned a bit from a planned trilogy.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think Martin did have a loose outline, but the show happened and people hated his ending so he's not motivated to publish it in book format.

 

[Jormungandr]

Oh you poor, poor, bastard.

Him and Martin are classic examples of what happens when you don't have a plan. Rowling meanwhile, for all her faults as a writer, at least had a fuzzy outline she followed.

Rowling, however, didn't adapt her overall outline as the she wrote the series/it organically evolved.

For example, Harry and Hermione in the early--mid books had a lot more emotional connections and chemistry than they did with Ginny and Ron, respectively. The series, as she wrote it, literally just grew that way against her final ending's outline.

When she got to book six, she realized this in hindsight and panicked, hence the shitty characterizations, romances, and plots in the last two books. It was all literally a panicked railroading at the last minute to get it back on track.

Unfortunately, we got what we got as a result, and she even admitted it in a later interview that she fucked up badly with going for the original outline's choices.

I mean, when it gets to the point that Ginny being bumped off would've been more emotionally impactful than her and Harry having a cliched and rushed "love story" as in canon, you know things went terribly wrong somewhere.

Martin, I think, has a different problem: His outline grew and mutated too much to the point where he literally has lost the plot, and his endgame was something similar to Game of Thrones' -- people hated it, so now he doesn't know what to do because he knows if he writes what he intended after eventually getting there, he's going to be proverbially lynched by the hordes of people/fans awaiting his work.

 

[Abhorsen]

Oh you poor, poor, bastard.

Him and Martin are classic examples of what happens when you don't have a plan. Rowling meanwhile, for all her faults as a writer, at least had a fuzzy outline she followed.

As it goes for planning, comparing someone to Rowling is like comparing someone's world building to Tolkien. Obviously they come up short. Like her or hate her, Rawling's ability to foreshadow and plan ahead is second to none, both in a single book and between books.

For just a few examples, Trewlany is always right about what she sees but never the interpretation, Pettigrew death method, Sirius Black being namedropped in book 1, and I could go on.